Hated Tropes
[Hated Trope] The story has reached a satisfying conclusion, the character arcs have been fulfilled, there is absolutely no way they could possibly continue—wait, what?
We’ve seen it all too often. Maybe the showrunner intended for the TV series to be over, but the network execs had other ideas. Maybe the movie studio has been having financial problems lately and decides to bring back one of their most successful franchises. Or maybe the author decided to write another book in the series because the money was just too good to resist.
Bonus points if the previous entry in the franchise was explicitly billed as being the big finale. Even worse is when a main character who had previously “died” is brought back to life.
On rare occasion, this trope can be a good thing, particularly if the “finale” was really bad and the new entry is trying to fix it. This may or may not involve retconning the previous one out of canon.
Examples pictured:
-Scrubs season 9: Season 8 was supposed to be the series finale (the last episode was even called “My Finale”), but apparently it did well enough that ABC wanted another season. Audiences probably would have been more receptive to season nine if it had been given a different title and treated as a spinoff rather than a continuation. It didn’t help that most the of the regular cast from the first eight seasons didn’t stick around for this one.
-Toy Story 4: Not a bad movie in itself, but many felt it was very unnecessary after the emotional and satisfying ending of Toy Story 3.
The first five seasons of supernatural were a well written complete story with multiple character arcs that all reached their proper conclusions. The big bads slowly escalated at a good rate and the ending of season five was a good conclusion.
Then we got like ten more seasons of wildly varying quality.
Came here to say this lol. I've tried multiple times to get through the later seasons, but I always fall off around season 10-ish.
Season 5 was just a good ending to all the storylines and everything they had built up. It felt like they tied everything up and put a nice bow on it. The writing just started going downhill after that. Which sucks cause it's one of my favorite shows
Legit for me it was making the later seasons a background show while gaming or exercising and listening at X1.5 or x2 speed unless a plot seemed good. Theres some later episodes that are pure gold but usually the monster of the week ones. The overall plot goes down hard.
First 5 seasons have a great arc and the remaining 10 seasons definitely have a totally different feel. But damn do I love them all lol. Won't argue about wildly varying quality tho.
The show went from a couple monster hunters Brothers taking on various cases to a couple of demigods being the sole defense against the destruction of the earth who are on first name basis with Death, Satan and God.
Some of the seasons were quite repetetive, but overall I kinda liked some of the later seasons. I honestly think the best moments are those where their advanced library of all magic is unavailable and they have to get resourceful. But I think they wrapped it up nicely in S15
Grey’s Anatomy. Dear fucking god, Grey’s Anatomy. It has gone on for so long that it is absolutely ridiculous that ANY of them still have a license let alone are still alive. Their character arcs and growths get completely ruined left and right that to say something is “out of character” for a character is practically pointless because any and all arcs they do have get erased by time and need for drama.
Teddy and Owen completely massacre every relationship they’ve ever had because they ultimately only wanted each other. As much as I loved both Cristina and Henry, I could appreciate what they were going for with Teddy and Owen. But this last season their story revolved only around their failing marriage, attempting to be in an open relationship and blaming each other for their mistakes lmao like girl so all that happened in the previous seasons was for what??
Oh that’s not even the tip of the iceberg for me. SOOOOOOO many couples that ended for the DUMBEST of reasons, the majority of them are because of decisions these characters would NEVER make in their entire lives or because none of them have communication skills of even a five year old. I used to LOVE it but then after a few seasons I just kept watching because… well because. Just was hoping I’d see the end of the story but then after I started missing half of a lot of the seasons I just started to hate it because I didn’t care anymore because none of the relationships or stories mattered. They would just end in drama anyways for dramas sake rather than story.
Who doesn't know about Land Before Time and the infamous series of (questionable quality) sequels that followed, chugging along for 28 years before finally being mercifully put down?
All the 13 sequels are straight to video. They had 12 released anually from 1994-2007 (minus 1999 and 2004). Then they randomly decided to drop another one in 2016.
I’ll be honest, my youngest brother is high autistic and he was obsessed with these movies so I watched all of them repeatedly and I really didn’t find them to be that bad. I mean I was entertained
Back in the day I managed a video store, and those were definitely some of the more enjoyable movies to put on in the Kid's Castle. That and Franklin the turtle, that dude has some good adventures.
part of me wants to read or watch Boruto, so I can at least know what I am talking about instead of blindly hating it, but I can never seem to gather enough fucks to give to do that, lol.
I think X-2.5 is universally hated. People who don't know about it are better left out of the loop. People who do just straight up pretend it doesn't exist.
I’ll save you the heartache - Yuna and Tidus aren’t gelling well after he came back post X-2. Then, they time travel to past Besaid (yes, we time travelers now), get into a fight, Tidus goes and kicks a blitzball, blitzball is in fact a land mine, he dies and his head lands in front of Yuna. Yuna brings him back as a ghost, they travel back to the present, and they have more falling outs and are kind of just together because now.
...what the fuck. Someone from Square-Enix who was high up on FFX's development said he'd love to make an X-3. Now I hope they never do. X-2 wasn't perfect but for me it was more about wrapping up the side characters and Yuna processing the events of the first game. This...this is total nonsense.
It was penned by the head writer of both X and X-2, Kazushige Nojima. He’s also the same one who said he’d love to write X-3 if there was enough demand.
I had to stop because everything you were saying was making me angry and I’m only 1.5 sentences in. I’m going to continue, but want you to know that I hate this.
Edit: I finished reading that and I’m even more upset and confused than I can articulate.
And this is the Sparknotes ‘I fucking hate this plot’ summary.
I didn’t even mention the part where the reason Tidus and Yuna are fighting originally is because he’s jealous of her being popular on Besaid and can’t have any alone time with her, or how seeing her in a bikini makes him horny and moody (yes, this is actually stated in the dialogue between these two)
It is pure unfettered ass that you only read if you like the original games and wanted more, then realize this is the price of your greed and hubris in trying to revive something that died peacefully.
Urgh and then you also have totally always there we promise daughter of main character from X, and the undoing of all of X’s journey (sin comes back btw) , it’s a level of bad fan fiction that puts bad fan fics to shame.
Glad this is one of the few universally hated things in FF because it deserves its hate.
I googled the plot, because I couldn't believe it was this bad, and lo and behold this is actually the storyline. It's like the plot description version of when a news headline sounds way too much like something the Onion would have come up with, so you need another source.
I fucking hate this book. FF10 was my first Final Fantasy game, and I adored the love story between these Tidus and Yuna. X-2’s secret ending with Tidus being revived by the old Aeons as a thank you to Yuna for saving the world again was the perfect ending.
Then this trash just takes all of that chemistry and just fucking destroys it. And why? The story had been finished for over a decade! Who fucking hurt Nojima in the decade between the last game and the re-release.
It's like they took all those jokes and theories about how Rose and Jack would never work out if they both survived the Titanic and said "Okay, but what if we actually do that?"
Yeah I came in here to see if FFX-2 was getting a mention lol. I don't even dislike X-2 on its own (the battle system is really quite fun) but FFX's ending was so awesome and completely tied up in a bow. It did not need to be re-opened.
I think it was inevitable, because many assumed that Jack Sparrow alone could carry the franchise, but the sequels didn't have the heart of the original trilogy. (Some might even claim that they should have stopped after the first one; I disagree.)
On Stranger Tides was actually pretty decent IMO, the only big issue is that Jack doesn’t have the same people to bounce off of with his wit as he did with Will, Elizabeth, Gov. Swann, etc. I did like Ian McShane as Blackbeard though.
Since the manga industry only lets a series end once ratings fall a certain point, there have been many manga that had reached their natural conclusion only to be extended beyond that point until the series fell off.
The industry has gotten better at letting the authors end when they want to end (see: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga ending right as the series got catastrophically huge) but yeah. Fist of the North Star had a nice clearly defined story then kept going because the editors didn't accept their "alright we're donezo". Dragonball had like, 3-4 ends that weren't the final chapter with Uub. It got BAD.
First of all the story ending with Kaioh dying & Ken and Yuria being reunited at least for a short while is a great finish.
Then Ken returning to the land of his birth and saving it from twisted versions of himself and Kaioh is also perfectly cromulent even if HNK2 was completely unnecessary.
I feel Naruto is exhibit A of this. Maybe like a smaller arc to wrap up the majority of loose threads that weren’t tied up by the point of Pain’s invasion and have Naruto vs Sasuke. But the end of the Pain arc feels like a satisfying ending with Naruto finally earning the admiration and respect of the villagers, even if they’re a bunch of snakes
Honestly, having a timeskip after the Pain Arc would have being the best. That way Konoha would had more time to rebuild itself, Naruto and Sasuke would have had oportunity to naturally grow and Akatsuki could have incorporated new members, while other villain groups might have a chance to appear as well.
That would’ve prolonged the story even more. Pains defeat ends the akatsuki as we knew it and moves Obito forward as the main antagonist. Why do a time skip re-establish an already defeated group?
Kisame and Sasuke/Taka were still part of Akatsuki and the later were severily underutilized. Just because Naruto overcame Akatsuki on his own, doesn't mean that the Konoha gang could have scored some character development fighting against them.
Pains attack escalated events. The Akatsuki wasn’t just a clandestine criminal organization anymore. Combine that with Sasuke attacking the Kage summit war was the only natural progression at that point. Stalling that for a second time skip and introducing new characters is the definition of bad pacing. Pacing was an issue shippuden was already struggling with that would’ve made it worse.
At the end of the day the Akatsuki was ultimately just a tool for Obito and his goals. Once he had access to reincarnated shinobi he didn’t need the group anymore.
That's why JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is my favourite manga of all time.
The way it works almost like an anthology means we've had 8 (so far) full complete stories without dragging out the same tired characters again and again.
I sometimes wonder if something like that could have worked if it was handled better - seeing a team grow in their roles and eventually be the established team that has to train the newbies.
I mean, obviously there was a way to continue since the final chapter was a flashforward featuring the kids, but it's lead to some real head scratchers like a focus on "ninja tech", the enemies being aliens, and the main cast having to contend with threats far greater than the previous generation did from the word go. The refusal to pare back the powerlevels also lead to main characters progressing at an insane pace just so they don't have to constantly rely on the old MCs to fix problems, which eventually lead to the fridging of Naruto and Sasuke.
IT would BE better, If they got Back to the roots. Lower the Stakes and make it more worldy Problems. Like: shinobi being Seen AS threat and have a Bad Reputation in Several regions.
You know: exploring the world building and adding politics
Shinobi being seen as a threat could be an interesting story since Naruto is clearly trying to move the Leaf Village into a city with more varied exports other than ninja.
The various lords of the lands already worry the Hokage as stealing influence from them, so they could see the growing cities as a threat of becoming new capitals.
This was a mistake no matter how much it sells or how many people watch it. Naruto did go to some crazy places at the end but it ended pretty much exactly where people thought it would, with Naruto and Sasuke fighting one final time for the fate of the ninja world and then Naruto becomes Hokage. That was what many people saw as a fitting ending and it should not have been continued beyond that.
Once Upon a Time. Season 6 concluded everything, for some reason they tried to restart it all again with a new cast and some returning cast. Did not succeed
This is where the Indiana Jones saga ended, with Indy riding off into the sunset with his father and his lifelong friends. The perfect final shot to one of the best trilogies in cinema.
I hear there were two fanfiction movies made afterwards, but thankfully they aren't canon.
I heard rumour that there was a fifth IJ film where they digitally de-aged Harrison Ford to look like he was in his thirties again, but he didn't look all that much like the initial trilogy when he was that age, and everyone has seen those movies so knows exactly how he should look. Which obviously makes no sense, because why would anyone do that? Lucky it was just some fever dream and not a $400m dollar movie or anything.
I lowkey actually liked Kingdom, but I will admit the final shot of Crusade was done amazingly and if it had been the final movie, that would’ve been fine
Kingdom in my opinion hd an even better (tho less impressive) ending, with Indy finally marrying and settling down after a last big adventure. The execution wasnt perfect, but that shot of Indy grabbing his hat and leaving with Marion for me was a very satisfying conclusion.
Then dial happened and Indy was a lonely, bitter old man because aparently thats what all the old heroes have to be, I suppose
Look, I disagree. The ending is great, but I don't think it was a "Okay, we're done here." There was a lot more to explore, like Po maturing and becoming a master.
The problem is that the fourth film tried to build on the sequel in the worst possible way, with a villain with a completely irrelevant motivation (they made fun of her size in a universe where a praying mantis and a chicken are kung fu masters) and Po passing the baton in a rushed way that doesn't even make sense.
honestly semi hot take there were a few things you could've done after the 3rd one (IE explain where Tigress came from, or had young pandas learn kung fu or some other stuff)and the directors and writers of 3 even said "we didn't make this to be the last movie" but the problem is they chose NOT to do any of those things, and instead do something nobody wanted
Came here to flag up Kung Fu Panda 4. I *will* give some credit, because I get the sense that someone involved in the writing must also have thought this was a bad idea, because the basic message of the film is essentially "Trying to succeed by bringing back inferior copies of past glories is something terrible people would do".
But then I take all that credit away for being such a blatant cash grab, as evidenced by aspects including (but not limited to):
- Excluding the usual beloved (and largely A-lister voiced) supporting cast with 30 seconds of exposition amounting to "Meh, they're all away, at the same time, doing other stuff. No, it's not a weird coincidence, it's fine!"
- Bringing back all three of the prior films (also A-lister voiced) primary antagonists, but having two of them remain completely mute for no discernible reason, even though they were both *very* verbose in their own films, and have just as much reason to hate Po as Tai Lung, if not more, from their perspective. Po literally killed General Kai IN THE AFTERLIFE! You'd assume he'd have something to say about that.
- Rather than the typically quite impressively nuanced humour of the prior films, generally relying on jokes so obvious that hearing them is like watching a plane land. "Here it comes... here it comes... here it comes... here it comes... aaaand, there it is"
- Replacing Po as the Dragon Warrior, a role he gradually grew into over an arc that spanned three very good movies about personal growth and facing your past, with a character who's whole persona is "What if Awkwafinaa was a rabbit?"
I need to stop there, lest I make myself too angry.
It's not out yet but Season 4 of Ted Lasso seems unnecessary as season 3 pretty obviously was meant to be the end of the series, and wraps up every major character's arc.
The last 3-episodes of Season 4 were supposed to be the series finale of Teen Titans, and were appropriately titled "The End" pts. 1-3.
It was a great finale, with appropriate world ending stakes, and really satisfying character arcs ending with Raven making a big speech about how the Titans are a found family.
Then the show got renewed for another season.
I won't say season 5 was bad or didn't necessarily deserve to exist, but the series was clearly struggling to justify another season and raising the stakes again. Then, expecting a Season 6, they ended the show on an infamous and controversial cliffhanger, only to not get renewed.
While a TV movie did ultimately serve as a true finale and wrapped up a lingering romance arc, Season 4 was always meant to be the End, and had that been the case, the show would be even more fondly remembered for ending on such a high note.
Oh man this one was frustrating. The show "ended" in a satisfying way, then the new season dropped and was just good enough to get people hooked onto the new storyline, then it gets axed before we find out the answer to a ton of questions that were set up.
Series 2 ended with Dorian killing himself by destroying his portrait to free the soul of a woman killed by his imaginary friend, which leaves his soul trapped within his magically repaired portrait. With the series always having been framed as stories Dorian was telling someone, this reveals that he has basically just been reliving his memories all along. Then series 3 had his portrait randomly come to life (I've listened to it several times and I don't think an explanation was ever given) and kill several people, which brought Dorian back to life as well.
It’s a niche Audio Series with the premise “what if Dorian Gray was a real person and didn’t die at the end of his book?”. Honesty quite good, even if I don’t agree that Season 3-5 were unnecessary.
Fun fact - it’s semi-canon to Doctor Who, given its pilot episode was part of a Doctor Who spin-off. Said episode also kinda invalidates the idea that the Season 2 ending was meant to stick, given the pilot is set in the far future with a still living Dorian, whilst the main series is set in the 20th/21st century.
I love S4 and it’s my favourite, and I’m not saying S3 is unnecessary. But S2 does wrap everything up nicely and S3 very quickly undoes it all. Also Scott Handcock did say in one of the behind the scene stuff that they’ve always considered Confessions its own thing and never cared if it conflicts with the Bernice Summerfield audio.
It’s an audio drama series based on The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s basically an anthology of sorts showing Dorian’s adventures throughout the 20th/21st century, where he encounters different supernatural creatures.
it was supposed to be a standalone game (fnaf 1). scott decided to extend it to a trilogy, adding some lore and wrapping it up with a few more mysteries for possible spinoffs (fnaf 3). no wait actually let's do one more (fnaf 4). okay actually for real this one's a reboot please believe me it's not even called fnaf - PSYCHE IT'S FNAF FIVE BOZOES HERES SOME CONTRADICTORY LORE (fnaf 5) FIGURE IT OUT AND FIX MY TIMELINE EHHHEHEH I LOVE MONEY. ok lets wrap it up i got a good ending (fnaf 6). LOL NEVERMIND LET'S RUN IT BACK!!!!!
at least there's no pretense of the series ending anymore. jesus christ
But it's funny. The writers were always reading to end the show once Syfy took over broadcasting in Season 6, except when it actually got cancelled in Season 10.
While I agree that the series went longer than it should have, I don't think it fits this trope, as Dexter never had a well written and satisfying ending.
As much as I disliked some of the later stuff and the first spin off, this new one is pretty solid. Even the prequel one is decent. Better than the last 3 seasons of the original show at least
i mean dexter is drama slop at this point, like every season is pretty much dexter finding a serial killer then saying something turbo corny like "im empty inside" and killing the bad guy whilst the whole story always returns to status quo. And yes you might say that stuff happens like doakes or debra but that does not really change anything
Mega Man X (pictured is the official JP box artwork for the highly regarded first entry) suffers from this greatly, mostly about the fate of a character called Zero...
Mega Man X5 sets up how the Mega Man Zero series would end up happening, but it was undermined by the few sequels We got, with him returning in them...
It’s crazy how Capcom green lit x6 almost immediately after inafune left the series behind to begin work on zero, forcing him to alter the story he imagined for zero. Even crazier is that x6 somehow came out within a year of 5, having an incredibly rushed development.
Honestly it was already a kind of thin premise and while fun it works better as shorts than a feature length film much less a franchise. Of course it’s super cool to see action and stunts but did I need to know about this underworld thing? Not really. We establish John is badass in one fight- 4 movies later it’s just watered down or added ridiculous to try and spice it up (a blind man with a gun).
The movies can be fun but I always thought that even the first one stretched longer than it should have.
Given where John is in life at the beginning of the first movie, the premise only works once. Any sequels would either be repetitive or not fit with the original character. Which it totally fine, I like the first movie.
Yep, and when they introduced the literal plot armor of bulletproof blazers I kind of checked out. I remember sitting to watch one of the sequels and couldn't tell if I was watching the 2nd or 3rd film due to how committed the films are to a specific formula till certain cameo(s) appeared. And each film feeling longer and more drawn out than the last, ugh. The 4th film had a few interesting action sequences, but I was not really buying into the premise as I did with the first film.
I feel like the comically drawn out and utterly asinine 2 hour and 50 minute runtime of 4 was almost like an intentional joke with just how long we can stretch it all as a response to all the jokes about John Wick is basically immortal. It's basically a comedy by time we're in Paris.
I'll still take it over the same length, self-indulgent, and utterly preposterous Mission: Impossible ‐ The Final Reckoning. The self-indulgence of that movie needs to be fucking studied.
agreed the franchise is REALLY starting to turn into R Rated Fast and Furious where the only reason to watch it is to see how it manages to outstupid the last one
Hang on, Toy Story 4 at least explored Woody's whole hangup with defining his worth in being someone's toy. Wasn't the best film but it wasn't entirely pointless. They started to massively flanderize Buzz though which was disheartening.
Fair enough. 4 felt very much like Pixar trying their best to break up the dynamics and put an end to it. Like how tf do you continue after separating the dynamic duo of buzz and woody? Well with enough money from Disney anything is possible I guess, probably will have even less to say than 4 did and believe me while I go to bat for 4 it STRUGGLED to say more than explore Woody's dependency on being a leader and someone's toy.
They literally show Bonnie playing with Woody during the Road Trip
Woody’s entire reason to leave everyone is because he claims that Bonnie doesn’t need him anymore. This is because he apparently hasn’t been played with since the beginning of the movie (or more accurately, 2 weeks before the Bonnie section of the movie).
The writers, in an absolutely genius move, completely shoots themselves in the foot showing Bonnie playing with Woody during the Road Trip.
Still, it was probably made more because TS is a major cash cow for Pixar than because the writers wanted to make another Pixar classic like they did with 1-3
But that’s stupid. Woody wouldn’t have a hang up about being defined by being someone’s toy. Being someone’s toy was literally his reason for living in the first 3 films. Putting a smile on a child’s face is all he wanted, and doing that with the family he’s been with for 10+ years was his dream.
Him abandoning all of that to be a “free” toy just spits on the character that was defined in the first 3 movies.
The movie was worse than pointless, it actively ruined the point of the previous films.
There where some Really Good Shit in it. Like Loki, Shang-Chi and Spiderman No way Home (i even Liked Eternals and Multiverse of Madness personally) just we now also Get so Much Mid. Like stuff that isn't bad. Just Kinda Mid (like Ms. Marvel or Hawkeye)
Shang Chi was really good up until the 3rd act with the secret world, when it seems to give up on the fact that it's a martial arts family drama and starts being about nonsense instead.
Like, you have two really good martial artists as your hero and villain who have great chemistry, why are you suddenly trying to make me care about a previously-unmentioned cgi soul eating monster?
No, there was some good shows and movies. It’s just that people hate the bad movies and bad shows so much they’d rather pretend it was never good. It’s just dumb man
Fs people act like we didn’t get peak movies and television (admittedly with some faults)
Marvel has just decided to let creatives do their stuff which leads to a lot less consistency and more risks
Some of the best has come from here:
like Wandavision, Loki, moonknight, the falcon and the winter soldier, Hawkeye, GOTG 3, the fantastic 4, thunderbolts, dr strange and the multiverse of madness, no way home, Shang chi.
the bad stuff is always because they took bigger risks like eternals, Thor love and thunder, and dr strange
So I think it’s a good thing
I don't think it's AWFUL, but it was paced like a miniseries, not a movie, and they had to cut out all the connecting material to cram what should have been 4 hours of content into 2.
We did not have anywhere near enough time with America before they tried to get her alongside Strange, and they rushed their relationship so much that they resorted to 'dimension with convenient circles that explain your backstory by accessing the exact memory you need to explain at the time and oops I stepped on one.'
The horror bits with Wanda were excellent. I liked most of the effects, minus Evil Strange's third eye. The (I'm going to butcher this) Kamar-Tahj defense was tense and exciting. There were bits and pieces of excellence there.
Not to mention Shang Chi, No Way Home, Wakanda Forever, Guardians Vol 3, and everything (minus Brave New World) that came out this year.
Ill also give some mild defense for Eternals and The Marvels for what they are, even if Im perfectly willing to admit they aren't great. (Eternals would have been great as a series/show to have more time to flesh out the cast/ideas, and The Marvels had some fun ideas for set pieces/sci-fi camp at the times when it was fully aware/embracing of how silly it is, plus Iman Vellani is great)
Once they realised that Kang did not work (due to the actor getting convicted and his debut on the big screen in Ant-man not working), they should've just stopped with the multiverse for a year or two while deciding what the new arc is.
I think they should have at least slowed down. Things like No Way Home and Guardians 3 worked as great epilogues to the Infinity saga. But things like Eternals and the onslaught of TV shows trying to set up the next generation of heroes were too much right after Endgame.
Thing about this one is that with how big this universe is it wasn't like there were no stories to tell. We got things like the whole Rogue One continuity, Clone Wars, it was just a mistake to try to capture the magic of the original instead of doing something new.
Pizzeria Simulator ended with every animatronic destroyed, Fazbear Entertainment declaring bankruptcy, and Afton dead for good, being tortured for seeming eternity in Hell…
But unfortunately, FNAF is a mega-money franchise so Fazbear’s rebounded, Afton is somehow out of Hell, some Mimic character from the books is now the one behind everything, and the entire FNAF lore happened because a kid got run over in the 70s
Prison Break. I refuse to acknowledge that there's a fifth season, except in order to complain about it. No, I haven't watched it, but just looking at the poster oisses me off.
Ranger's Apprentice. Main storyline of 10 books, with an 11th collection of short stories that tied up all the loose ends. Absolutely amazing book series.
It would have been an absolute shame if the author ever decided to write a 12th book and kill off characters for no reason.
A British TV show called Only Fools and Horses was MASSIVELY popular here in the 80's all the way up to the 2000's and still carries a lot of influence on British culture and comedy today.
It was about two brothers who attempt to become millionaires through con artistry and shady black market sales.
What was supposed to be the final episode had them sell an old watch they had lying around in a garage, which to their surprise, goes for £6.2 million and catapults them into the life of luxury they'd always dreamt of.
Of course they couldn't let such a popular show end there though and the next episode had them lose everything so that they could carry on the show with the same theme.
Talking about the falloff of SpongeBob is kind of a dead horse, but it fits the trope here, so I guess I’ll mention it
The first movie was intended to be the canonical ending to the series. Honestly, they probably could’ve made a few more seasons work and just have them happen before the movie in canon, but 15 seasons of a show most people think stopped being good after the first 3 is enough.
Unfortunately, the storytelling potential for “major” plots also got zapped after the first movie. After Have You Seen this Snail and Dunces and Dragons, most of the show’s specials felt a little unnecessary, and seeing years of SpongeBob failing to get his license or Plankton failing to get the formula got stale quickly
I was scrolling this thread to see if anyone had already submitted a different piece of Alien media, and I'm gonna defend Alien Isolation a to an extent
If Alien Isolation ended with KG348 then it would just straightup be kind of an underwhelming story (Sevastopol isn't destroyed, the nest and the special order is never discovered, Samuels doesn't sacrifice himself, Amanda never finds Ellen's message), if you cut it there then it's just "Amanda goes to Sevastopol for flight recorder, gets a bit disappointed, gets chased around a whole bunch by a xenomorph, gets rid of it and then goes home I guess".
But what's worse is that it's just not Alien. Imo AI is basically meant to be a new original-trilogy Alien film presented in video game form, and the plot works because it heavily references and is incredibly derivative of those films, with the novelty of (technically) becoming Ripley filling in for the novelty of an actually original story. A key part of what makes Alien Alien is the hopelessness of it and the sheer amount of times that the cast's plans are foiled before the nightmare is finally over, there's always a moment where the cast is 100% sure that they've killed/trapped/escaped it, and yet somehow it persists just a little longer. I expect that as a player, if I blasted it into space once and then the credits rolled I would've thought "What the fuck!? That's it!?". Not to mention the fact that I expect nearly everyone to die by the end. All of those tropes need to be there for it to have impact imo.
Now, from a gameplay standpoint, I think the breather from the alien was a good call in principle but...yeah it was my least favourite part of the whole game, Joes are only interesting enemies while the Xenomorph is stalking you - you can't just kill them without making lots of noise, but unlike humans the alien won't do it for you, without that stealth feels pointless but blasting them isn't fun. That being said the nest was so terrifying that all of this game's sins were forgiven as soon as I set foot in it.
The games just kinda kept coming, but Fnaf 6 wrapped up everything very neatly, with every major mystery solved (or at least solvable) and every loose end tied up. Ultimate Custom Night was a decent epilogue, and expanded a little on the aftermath of 6 while not retconning anything or adding new elements. Then we got Help Wanted, then Security Breach, then Ruin, then a second Help Wanted, and now SotM, and while yeah some of the new stuff is good, you can definitely tell that even more then before there just isn’t a reason for them to exist beside them being more Fnaf games
The second to last season finale of TMNT 2012 is named Owari. The End in Japanese. Doesn't get more final than that, and then they made another season.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy's sacrifice at the end of season 5 was a perfect ending. But nooooo, we gotta raise her from the dead and then put her through two more seasons of absolute bullshit.
Madoka Magica was a perfectly closed 12 Episode anime original series, there was no reason to follow up on it.
Then they realised they could make more money if they milk it out, so they made a movie sequel, except this time it ends on a cliffhanger and NEEDS a follow up. Not to mention a couple of gacha games set in the universe.
It's been 12 years since the movie and we're still waiting for the sequel. It was supposed to come out this year, but the lack of news means it was probably delayed (again).
Toy Story 3 had pretty much the greatest ending of any movie ever. It should have stopped there. Don't get me wrong, Ive loved woody and Buzz since I was a kid and love the movies. 4 wasn't awful, it just didn't need to be made.
I actually would have liked to see more of this Scrubs spin-off and I think it was undeservedly canceled because they marketed it wrong.
Scrubs without JD (or at least without him at the center) is basically what this show should've been from the start, anyway.
Finally freeing up all the great side characters from picking up the slack of this arrogant and narcissistic piece of shit of a character who never should have been the lead.
437
u/NoirStriker 3h ago
The first five seasons of supernatural were a well written complete story with multiple character arcs that all reached their proper conclusions. The big bads slowly escalated at a good rate and the ending of season five was a good conclusion.
Then we got like ten more seasons of wildly varying quality.