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May 13

Cliffhanger endings and season renewals

This question came to me after watching the last episode of season 3 of The Americans, which has a cliffhanger ending. The show has been renewed for a further season, but obviously season 3 must have been written and filmed long before the decision to renew the show was made. So how does this work? If the writers put in a cliffhanger ending before they know if they will be renewed, isn't that putting pressure on the network to renew the show? The network would be pretty unpopular if they pulled the plug on the show leaving a cliffhanger ending never to be resolved. I can see that it would be highly unsatisfactory for the writers to round off a season leaving no loose ends whatsoever, but wouldn't the networks prefer that as it would make it easier for them to pull the plug on the show? Or do the networks give the writers permission to include a cliffhanger ending, on the tacit understanding that they will be renewed? Have there been any examples of a show that had a cliffhanger ending to its last season and was never renewed? --Viennese Waltz 08:21, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wait, I see there is something about this at Cliffhanger#Serial media, which I hadn't read. --Viennese Waltz 08:24, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of several. Silk Stalkings was one. One of the cops was under investigation for murder, I think, and they left it hanging. Another was the 1960s series The Time Tunnel, which was not picked up for the next season, so the two guys never came home. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:02, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've always found that TV series just peter out, so, for example, the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701 are presumably still on their "five year mission", 46 years after the series finished. The only series that I can think of that definitely ended were Number 96, Quantum Leap and The Prisoner, although most fans would say The Prisoner didn't end. --TrogWoolley (talk) 13:34, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Fugitive, with David Jansen, was maybe one of the first to have a decisive conclusion, and it was a ratings bonanza. During the 70s and 80s they started having planned conclusions more often. The Mary Tyler Moore Show and MASH come to mind. The Cosby Show also had a decisive conclusion, as they walked off the set and waved to the audience. Shows like The Time Tunnel and Lost in Space had "origin" episodes but no concluding episodes. Star Trek was a little different, in that it didn't really have a starting episode, the premise was already established. And presumably the films were a continuation of the TV series, albeit more than a decade later. Quantum Lep had a nice wrapup show, but it also ended with kind of a "to be continued", implying that his adventures might go on even though the show stopped. The Prisoner was a self-contained mini-series, and as I recall, he was able to leave the town in the final episode. Sometimes the endings are kind of ambiguous, as with The Sopranos, or kind of cynical, as with Seinfeld. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:49, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another show with a a definitive ending was Newhart. The original Star Trek didn't have one, most of the spinoffs had special last episodes that weren't necessarily endings, but Star Trek: Voyager ended definitely with the ship returning to Earth. --174.88.135.200 (talk) 09:41, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good reminder. The ending of Newhart might have been the best one ever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:58, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That, or the last Fraggle Rock. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:09, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some series that had an ending: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (twice!); Dexter; Arrested Development (before it came back); Lost; Day Break; Dollhouse; Gilmore Girls; The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Babylon 5 ended and then went on for another season, which I haven't seen. And of course many recent series, like Veronica Mars, have storylines that wrap at the end of each season. —Tamfang (talk) 07:36, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Does this help? --Jayron 32 16:53, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And, of course, TV Tropes is an excellent resource for many more examples of shows that were cancelled after a cliffhanger. Dismas|^(talk) 20:49, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The "ending" to Carnivàle still makes me hate HBO a bit, despite all the good they've done since. I take no comfort in knowing it at least died before it could jump the shark; even if Seasons 3-6 were the gang finding a time machine and adapting to wacky modern New York life before realizing it was all a dream, it would have been something. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:00, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody has to say it sooner or later: the best show ever to be canceled, Firefly, was axed after the first season finale but, after much lobbying by fans, was resolved through a movie, Serenity. This also brings to mind The X-Files spin off, The Lone Gunmen, which was cancelled after the first season cliffhanger finale but resolved in a later episode of The X-Files entitled "Jump the Shark".--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 08:17, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the interesting answers, but they mostly address the last question in my original post, which was actually just an afterthought. I'm still looking for authoritative responses on what the networks' policies are on this issue. Thanks, --Viennese Waltz 09:35, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Networks are businesses and as such their policies are probably pretty simple: viewers = ratings = sponsors = profit. The higher the ratings, the more sponsors are willing to pay for commercial time and product placement. Low ratings = no sponsors = no profit = cancelled show -- regardless of plot/cliffhanger issues. Networks aren't going to pay actors and crew and lose money (or potential money that could be earned by airing a more popular program in that time slot) just to resolve a fictional plot point. The plethora of shows that have been cancelled after a cliffhanger finale attest to that. As far as the network being worried about being "unpopular if they pulled the plug", since shows are cancelled for low ratings, there are relatively few people to upset...and they'll probably get over it as soon as the next show comes along.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 10:17, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]