New rule.."No season ending cliff-hangers until show is renewed" (1 Viewer)

[MarkHastings]

but why would any studio want to do anything with a show that they've decided to cancel?

It would be like planning a trip (next month) with your girlfriend...breaking up tommorw, then being expected to still go on the trip with her (next month) - You break up for a reason. The shows are cancelled for good reasons too (which is mainly $$)...if they cared about a 'resolve', they wouldn't have cancelled them in the first place.

 

[BrianW]

My understanding is that the writers of John Doe wanted to explain everything in the final episode, but were assured that the show would be renewed, and were thus encouraged to do a cliffhanger.

So much for a show's viability.

 

[Sean Bryan]

To try to avoid completely pissing off viewers of the network in the hopes that enough good will remains so that they will tune into one of their new shows.

After several bad experiences with FOX, I became very hesitant to take a chance on some of their new shows and specifically avoided some for this reason alone.

Not saying that the networks care about people that feel burned by them, but it would be a "reason" if they did.

 

[MarkHastings]

Exactly, they really don't care. Again, it's all about $$. If a show is doing so poorly as to cause it's cancellation, then I can't see how any effort would be put into a resolve. The networks just want the show off the air and to free up potential space for new profit.

And as far as pissing off the viewer, I can almost guarantee you that a network is more than happy to piss off an old viewer if it means they can put on a new show that gets 'new' viewers to watch.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Some of those series listed with cliff-hangers I really don't consider cliff-hangers. Lost in Space, Giligan's Island, and BSG, while not coming to the expected series conclusion - reaching "home", did not end in a Part 1 of 2. I would like a simple rule that if you shoot Part 1, you must also shoot Part 2 before airing, even if it does not conclude the series. I prefer that quest or mystery series have a proper conclusion but I'll take simply having Part 2 of any season cliff-hanger.

I'll add Red Dwarf Seasons 6 and 8 as a cliff-hanger endings with no immediate follow-on ending, which 8 still has not concluded.

 

[Britton]

I don't mind cliffhangers that are never resolved because 2 of my favorite series, Twin Peaks and Angel, ended that way.

Babylon 5 is an example of how a series can be hurt when the creators decide to favor a resolution rather than sticking with their original vision of a season ending cliffhanger. Season 4 was supposed to end with a cliffhanger, but instead almost 2 seasons worth of material was crammed into 1 so the story could be told in case there was no Season 5. The Shadow War had a sloppy resolution, and the first half of Season 5 was a complete bore IMO.

 

[MarkHastings]

If you want to look on the bright side of things, whenever they write a cliff-hanger epiosde at the end of the season, a lot of times they usually don't have any idea what the 'resolve' episode is going to be.

Like with the case of Popular, they had no idea what the next seasons first episode was going to be about.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Not quite the same, though. JMS had always planned a full 5-season arc, and wanted to tell the whole story in those 5 seasons. When it looked like he might not get his fifth season, he squeezed the main storyline into what was left of season 4 to ensure that the main story concluded, then when the 5th materialised he had no choice but to spread out what material he had left.

Blame the networks, really. But just imagine if the plug was pulled after the planned S4 had been shot and we got the Zha'adum cliffhanger as THE END and Babylon 5 had ended with no conclusion to the Shadow War? Ugh.

 

[Daniel-M]

I would rather that if the netwoks end the show and it has a cliffhanger they have to make a made for TV movie to resolve the cliffhanger

 

[Steve Meil]

I like to mention Sliders which ended with a 5th season cliffhanger never to be resolved. The Pretender- They did a couple of movies still no resolution after 4 seasons +.

 

[Brian Little]

Well it could be worse. How about a season cliff-hanger that is resolved in a manner that is so bad that you wish the show would of been cancelled instead. "Millennium" comes to mind with the resolution to the season 2 ender.

 

[David_Blackwell]

There might be news on The Pretender soon (as hinted at in a featurette on the Season 4 DVD set).

 

[Tim Fennell]

I think we can add Crime Story to this list. A very unsatisfying end to that if I recall and they never renewed it.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Crime Story? If anything, I thought that any way out of that ending would have been even more OTT than the first season when they survived a nuclear blast. I've always just interpreted it that the two protagonists die fighting each other, as they lived, so they died. Although I agree it's not entirely satisfying, it's appropriate.

 

[Rommel_L]

Unfortunately ratings and money makes the rules...

 

[Mary79]

Hello there,

I was just reading this thread and let me tell you, it makes me so mad when a show gets cancelled and there is a cliffhanger. The ones that come to mind for me are:

Earth 2
Lois and Clark
Kindred the Embraced (sp?)

And many more that you guys have all ready said. Now that they are all coming out on DVD, it just irks me more because you never know where they were going to take these shows and what was going to happen to characters that you fell in love with. Sometimes I wonder if network execs. are actually looking at what people want.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Ironic you should mention Earth 2 Mary, I had in an old thread also commented on the lack of resolution, someone then pointed me to a website that contained what was said to the producers' plan on where to take the show in season two, but it was rather, shall we say, underwhelming.