History Main / WhatNowEnding

* ''Film/TheIsland''. We have no idea how the world will deal with the fact that cloning is real.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' spin-off ''ComicBook/BadGuys'' ended with the Redemption Squad out in the middle of the ocean on a boat made of Matrix. They've managed to take Mistress Quickly prisoner, but Falstaff and the rest of his gang got away. [[TheHero Hunter]] and [[TheLancer Dingo]] are starting to fall in love. Yama waxes philosophical just before [[TakenForGranite turning to stone]]. [[TokenEvilTeammate Fang]] is bitchy as usual. Someone's going to save them, right? Right?

* ''Webcomic/FlightTheTaleOfTwoSisters'' ends with [[spoiler:Diamond leaving to go after Lilac (the only other known healer for her kingdom) and Parsley, all right after making up with her sister, Sapphire, with whom she had grown distant.]] The fact that both sisters [[spoiler:''still'' dealing with the death of their parents]] doesn't help. As of November 2022, it's unclear whether a sequel will be coming.

* The LiveActionAdaptation of ''Franchise/{{Devilman}}'' ends with [[spoiler:both hero and villain dying]]... ''after'' the ApocalypseHow. [[KillEmAll Cue the last two living named characters]] climbing to the surface, surrounded by SceneryGorn.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'', by its nature, is quite heavy on these.
* ''Series/TheATeam'' ended on this (though one episode later aired out of order). At the end of "The Grey Team", the team discusses the possibility of getting pardoned earlier than they thought, as Hannibal was thinking what they would do after getting pardoned.
-->'''Hannibal''': Well, I was thinking, like Bernie and George, what are we gonna do when this thing's over? I mean, what are we really qualified to do?
** However, they soon imply that they might likely continue doing what they did in their fugitive days - go after the bad guys.
* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' ends the dramatization with a baseball game between the men - wherein Dick Winters narrates the [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue post-war fates]] of most of them - but afterwards the end of the war is announced. The men look at each other as if to say, "now what do we do?"
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' ended two of its three seasons like this: season 3 ends with the crew stranded on Terminal and the Liberator destroyed. Season 4 ends with Scorpio destroyed and the crew apparently dead. Season two is a near miss: it ends on an actual CliffHanger with the Liberator staring down an invading armada, but the next season seemingly skips to the end of the war, with the Liberator crew abandoning ship and only returning much later.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' was the Queen of these:
** The second season ends with Buffy running away from Sunnydale.
** The third season ends with her going off to college.
** The fourth season ends with a dream episode that sets up a significant subplot of the fifth season.
** The fifth season ended with Buffy dead.
** The sixth season ended with a Prophecy Twist across both Angel and Buffy.
** The seventh and final season, ended with the question, "What are we going to do now?" Of course, Buffy's easy smile in answer to that question implied that it is not always a bad thing to lack an immediate threat.
** Heck, even "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling Once More, With Feeling]]" ends with the song "Where Do We Go From Here?"
* Buffy's SpinOff, ''Series/{{Angel}}'', had its fair share of these, too.
** The first season ended with the revelation that Angel might have a chance to become human again.
** The third season ended with Angel trapped at the bottom of the ocean, Cordelia being taken off to a higher plane of existence, Wesley in exile, Lorne moving to Vegas Baby, and only two characters left back at HQ, completely unaware of what's happened to Angel and Cordy.
** The fourth season ended with Angel and company taking over the LA branch of BigBad Wolfram and Hart.
** The fifth season ended with a BolivianArmyEnding.
* The first season of ''Series/BurnNotice'' ends with Michael boarding a truck that will supposedly take him to meet the people who burned him.
** In the second season, [[spoiler:We see a very similar situation with a helicopter instead]].
* ''Series/CaptainPowerAndTheSoldiersOfTheFuture'' is the quintessential example, as Season One (the [[CutShort only season it had before cancellation]]) ended with the [[AnyoneCanDie death]] of [[DyingDeclarationOfLove Jeniffer "Pilot" Chase]] after she [[HeroicSacrifice self-destructed the Powerbase's reactor]], both to keep the base's sensitive information from falling into Lord Dread's hands, and [[TakingYouWithMe to destroy Blastarr]]. The FiveManBand was effectively broken up, leaving Power, Hawk, Tank, and Scout destitute and hopeless in the wilderness.
* ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode [[Recap/CommunityS1E25PascalsTriangleRevisited Pascal's Triangle Revisited]] ends in the spring of one school year, and the next season premier picks up with the first day of school in the fall.
* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' had its fifth season end with Frasier accidentally getting the entire staff at the radio station he worked for fired.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' has its second season conclude with Monica breaking up with Richard while Chandler gets back together with Janice after falling in love with her for real, with the following season picked up a while later. Notable for being the only time a What Now? conclusion was used rather than an outright cliffhanger that had to be immediately resolved next season.
* The season 5 finale of ''Series/HighlanderTheSeries'' ends with [[spoiler:Richie [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dead at Duncan's hand]], and Duncan abandoning his katana and walking off into the night]].
* ''Series/{{House}}'' has had quite a few.
** In the second season finale, House gets shot, [[spoiler:and discovers that as a result of a coma induced in order to allow him to heal, his chronic pain is gone. While that turns out to be a hallucination, he does, at the end of the episode, decide to try to fix his leg using the method suggested in the hallucination.]] It works, for a while.
** In the third season finale, House fires his entire staff (or they resign, depending on member).
** In the fourth season finale, [[spoiler:Wilson's girlfriend dies as an indirect result of House's destructive behavior, and [[strike:Dr. Hadley]] Thirteen finds out she ''does'' have the gene for Huntington's Disease]].
** In the ''fifth'' season finale, [[spoiler:House finally kicks the pill habit and scores with Cuddy, only to discover that it was all a hallucination. He ends the season in a psychiatric hospital]].
** In the seventh season finale, [[spoiler:House drives his car through Cuddy's house, Cuddy is applying for a restraining order against him, and House is hiding from the police on some undisclosed Caribbean island]].
* Season 4 of ''Series/{{Lost}}'' ends with [[spoiler:the Oceanic Six getting off the island and the island ''vanishing'', leaving viewers to wonder what the structure of the show will be in season 5]].
** Season 5 ends on more of a CliffHanger, but as much as we're worried about [[spoiler:the fate of almost every character on the show]], most of us are more concerned with how the hell the show is going to keep going if what we just saw really happened the way it was implied to.
* ''Series/TheMandalorian'' ended its second season by [[spoiler:resolving the main story arc of the show by having Mando return Grogu to Luke Skywalker, leaving him without a quest and many fans wondering how the show could even continue. There were also a bunch of loose ends such as Mando accidentally winning Bo-Katan's Darksaber, Gideon claiming to have extracted Grogu's blood, and Boba stealing Jabba's palace in a setup for what is presumed to be a spinoff that hadn't even been announced prior to the episode's airing]].
* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' infamously ended its third season with the Command Center annihilated, the Rangers without their powers and helpless against the bad guys.[[note]]Luckily, that little crisis was resolved next season at the start of ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'', when the Rangers got new powers to fight evil.[[/note]]
* ''Series/TheOthers2000'' ended its first and only season with the entire cast apparently dead thanks to the machinations of an evil force. A cryptic comment by Einer as he dies points to the possibility that, had the series been renewed, the whole thing might have turned out to be a [[ThanatosGambit complex]] [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning plan]].
* This is how season 2 of ''Series/PhilOfTheFuture'' ended... ''[[LeftHanging forever]]''. Phil's family [[spoiler:goes back to the future, right after [[LastMinuteHookup he and Keely finally admit their feelings for each other]]. Problem was, they left [[TeamPet Curtis]] back in the 21st century]]. Obviously this was meant to pick up in season 3, or a movie, or ''something'', but no. There was NoEnding, unless you were to interpret it a one-off gag and that the family really just needed to quickly pick up Curtis before heading back for good.
* {{Police Procedural}}s, such as ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' and ''Series/{{CSI}}'' tend to have these.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' actually has a few of these. Season one ended with Jordan revealing everyone's personal secrets to each other, putting them all in very uncomfortable positions, season three ended with J.D. telling Elliott he didn't love her, and season four ended with J.D. moving out and recognizing he was at a crossroads in his life (with him literally wondering "what now?").
* ''Series/TheShield'' and ''Series/RescueMe'''s first seasons both ended with the wife of the protagonist leaving him and going into hiding because their spouse had become dangerous.
* ''The Shield's'' finale is also a bit of a "What Now?" ending, as [[spoiler:even after being reduced to a permanent desk job in return for immunity]], the last shot of the series leaves what happens next to Vic unclear.
* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' ended with Rembrandt sliding alone to his homeworld, despite a (very accurate) seer's warning that doing so would be fatal. The others are left standing there, asking, "Now what do we do?"
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' season 2: While this is very much a CliffHanger for Lex, for Clark it's a "What Now?" Ending to a T - he's [[spoiler:destroyed his only link to Jor-El, directly causing his mother to lose her baby]], alienated Lana and Chloe, and is in so much emotional turmoil that he ends the season riding away from [[CityOfAdventure Smallville]] [[NotHimself self-medicated]] on [[GRatedDrug Red Kryptonite]]. The next season premiere picks up months later.
* ''Series/SpaceAboveAndBeyond'' ended its first and only season with two members of the 58th squadron safe and sound, two more in the cockpit of a transport falling toward a planet with one of them already unconscious from a head wound, and the fifth one most definitely dead after the wreck of a destroyed enemy fighter hits him head on. Meanwhile, Earth's attempt to strike the enemy homeworld ended in disastrous failure, and we've just learned that their genocidal war might have been provoked by a human corporation that knowingly treaded all over their holy ground. With or without a second season, it was decidedly downbeat and any sense of victory was pretty small-scale.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' did this a lot (probably as a deliberate contrast to ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'', which usually had more traditional cliffhangers):
** Season two ended with the threat of a future Dominion invasion.
** Season three ended with the revelation that there are Changeling spies everywhere.
** Season four ended with the revelation that the Klingon chancellor was a changeling spy. [[spoiler: He wasn't. The real spy was his right-hand man, General Martok.]]
** Season five ended with the Federation having to evacuate Deep Space Nine and the beginning of a war with the Dominion.
** Season six ended with [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Jadzia Dax dead]] and [[TenMinuteRetirement Sisko leaving the station]].
** The last season ended with the crew going their separate ways (and occasionally ascending to a higher plane of existence).
* Season 5 of ''Series/StargateSG1'' ended with Daniel Jackson dead (and [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascended]]), the Tok'ra devastated and scattered, Thor's mind trapped in the controlling computer of Anubis's abandoned mothership, and Anubis himself rapidly gaining power and influence. But at least Earth and the SGC weren't in any immediate danger. The "mood of despair" was even more obvious at the conclusion of the two-parter "Summit/Last Stand" in the latter half of the season, but it wasn't the season finale.
* The ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' series finale "Enemy at the Gate" ended with Atlantis [[spoiler:landing near the Golden Gate Bridge]].
** ''Series/StargateUniverse'' ended on a big one. [[spoiler:''Destiny'' goes into an extended FTL jump to escape the drone armada, with the entire crew entering hypersleep for the next three years, possibly to be set adrift forever. Eli volunteers to stay behind with the single damaged pod, with two weeks to fix it before the life support fails and he dies.]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' loves these:
** Season Two ended with [[spoiler:Azazel dead but still succeeding in opening the gates to hell and releasing numerous demonic entities and spirits. Dean meanwhile has sold his soul to bring Sam back to life and only has a year left to live]].
** Season Three has [[spoiler:Dean getting killed, leaving Sam mourning over his body]].
** Season Five sees [[spoiler:Sam getting sucked into Hell and a distraught Dean giving up on being a hunter and settling down with an old flame. And then it's revealed unbeknownst to Dean that Sam has somehow escaped Hell]]. Season 6 picks up a year after this.
** Season Seven concludes with [[spoiler:the brothers killing the head Leviathan, but Dean getting trapped in Purgatory while Sam has no idea what to do to free his brother]].
* ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' second season ends with one of these, which is made even worse since the series has been ScrewedByTheNetwork.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'':
** ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' has [[spoiler:a major character dead, Torchwood non-existent and Jack having left Earth]].
** ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' ends with [[spoiler:everybody mortal again but with the world economy likely severely impacted. The Families have other plans to take control. Rex is shot by TheMole but comes back to life à la Jack with everybody shocked at this]].
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'' ends it's third season on an abnormally frustrating note. It's obvious that the writers assumed there was going to be a fourth season to make everything better.
* ''Series/TheWire'' season 3: Stringer is dead, Avon Barksdale along with the rest of his crew other than Bodie and Slim Charles are in prison, [=McNulty=] decides to quit Major Case Squad and become a beat cop, Colvin is forced to retire and Hamsterdam is torn down.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** Its fifth season ended with the titular department closed and Mulder and Scully reassigned. TheMovie picked up with this, ending when Mulder and Scully's adventure leads to the re-opening of the X-files, but, surprisingly, when the sixth season starts, though the department is open, Mulder and Scully haven't been returned to it.
** The series itself ended with [[spoiler:Mulder and Scully alive and together but on the run]] and the MythArc essentially unresolved, with [[spoiler:[[AlienInvasion extraterrestrial colonization of Earth]] supposedly proceeding on schedule for 2012 and no obvious way to stop it]]. The 2008 movie provided no further information about the MythArc.
[[/folder]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' spin-off ''ComicBook/BadGuys'' ended with the Redemption Squad out in the middle of the ocean on a boat made of Matrix. They've managed to take Mistress Quickly prisoner, but Falstaff and the rest of his gang got away. [[TheHero Hunter]] and [[TheLancer Dingo]] are starting to fall in love. Yama waxes philosophical just before [[TakenForGranite turning to stone]]. [[TokenEvilTeammate Fang]] is bitchy as usual. Someone's going to save them, right? Right?

* ''Film/TheProposition'', which even ends with the line "What are you going to do now?"
* ''Film/TheGraduate'' ends with Ben and Elaine, having just fled Elaine's wedding, sitting next to each other on the back seat of a bus as the adrenaline rush of the escape wears off, leaving them with expressions that can be summed up as, "So what do we do now?"
* In ''Film/{{Heathers}}'', J.D.'s last few lines invoke this:
--> [[spoiler: Pretend I did blow up the school - all the schools. Now that you're dead,]] what are you going to do with your life?
* The 1966 ''Film/BatmanTheMovie'' invokes this when its text The End is replaced by "The ''Living'' End?"

* ''Film/TheIsland''. We have no idea how the world will deal with the fact that cloning is real.
* ''Film/ZeroDarkThirty''. Maya finally gets Osama bin Laden, but she's literally spent much of her adult life (so far) pursuing one man in a decade long search that saw several of her friends killed, involved ''very'' questionable ethics, and bad intelligence that led nowhere. It's played with a bit literally, when the C-130 pilot in charge of transporting her asks where she wants to go. She can't answer.
* ''Film/ThereWillBeBlood'' ended with Daniel killing Eli. Whether or not he will be arrested is never answered.

* ''Film/AmericanGangster'' ended with the elderly Frank getting out of prison but with nowhere to go.
* ''Film/{{Suburbia}}'' ends with the TR kids successfully fighting off an invasion from two of the members from Citizens Against Crime. Cue the duo coming back around for round two, followed by Ethan getting run over and killed by their car, with Jack's father arriving too late to stop any of the aforementioned events from happening. Roll credits.
* ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' ends with Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott crawling around in the mud, feeling empty now that Frank has sexually awakened them and then died. It then fades to [[LemonyNarrator the Criminologist's]] office, where he gives a FauxlosophicNarration about humanity being lost in meaning.

* ''Film/TheBigLebowski'' ends this way. The Dude and Walter solve the mystery ([[MocksteryTale such as it was]]), but there's not really anything they can do about it, Donny's dead, the Dude has a son on the way that he'll never meet, and they've gotten no compensation for all the crap they went through, leaving them with nothing else to do but contemplate their lives before the big game. But hey, come what may, the Dude abides.
* ''Film/DangerDiva'' ends with Devi, Scattering, [[spoiler:their child]], and the now-freed masses standing in the rain wondering what to do next.

* ''Manga/PetShopOfHorrors'' ended with Count D disappearing from Los Angeles, leaving a badly injured Leon looking for answers after (finally) discovering the true nature of Count D and his pets. The flash-forward epilogue never resolves what happened to the two main protagonists [[spoiler: although we know from the sequel and side stories that Leon chases D across the world while D sets up shop in Tokyo and adopts a [[ReplacementScrappy new human]] to torment. Leon's eventual fate, however, is still up in the air]].

* ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'', by its nature, is quite heavy on these.
* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' ended with Rembrandt sliding alone to his homeworld, despite a (very accurate) seer's warning that doing so would be fatal. The others are left standing there, asking, "Now what do we do?"
* {{Police Procedural}}s, such as ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' and ''Series/{{CSI}}'' tend to have these.
* ''Series/TheShield'' and ''Series/RescueMe'''s first seasons both ended with the wife of the protagonist leaving him and going into hiding because their spouse had become dangerous.
* ''The Shield's'' finale is also a bit of a "What Now?" ending, as [[spoiler: even after being reduced to a permanent desk job in return for immunity]], the last shot of the series leaves what happens next to Vic unclear.
* ''Series/{{House}}'' has had quite a few.
** In the second season finale, House gets shot, [[spoiler:and discovers that as a result of a coma induced in order to allow him to heal, his chronic pain is gone. While that turns out to be a hallucination, he does, at the end of the episode, decide to try to fix his leg using the method suggested in the hallucination.]] It works, for a while.
** In the third season finale, House fires his entire staff (or they resign, depending on member).
** In the fourth season finale, [[spoiler:Wilson's girlfriend dies as an indirect result of House's destructive behavior, and [[strike:Dr. Hadley]] Thirteen finds out she ''does'' have the gene for Huntington's Disease.]]
** In the ''fifth'' season finale, [[spoiler:House finally kicks the pill habit and scores with Cuddy, only to discover that it was all a hallucination. He ends the season in a psychiatric hospital.]]
** In the seventh season finale, [[spoiler:House drives his car through Cuddy's house, Cuddy is applying for a restraining order against him, and House is hiding from the police on some undisclosed Caribbean island.]]
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' actually has a few of these. Season one ended with Jordan revealing everyone's personal secrets to each other, putting them all in very uncomfortable positions, season three ended with J.D. telling Elliott he didn't love her, and season four ended with J.D. moving out and recognizing he was at a crossroads in his life (with him literally wondering "what now?").

** In the second season, [[spoiler: We see a very similar situation with a helicopter instead.]]
* Season 5 of ''Series/StargateSG1'' ended with Daniel Jackson dead (and [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascended]]), the Tok'ra devastated and scattered, Thor's mind trapped in the controlling computer of Anubis's abandoned mothership, and Anubis himself rapidly gaining power and influence. But at least Earth and the SGC weren't in any immediate danger. The "mood of despair" was even more obvious at the conclusion of the two-parter "Summit/Last Stand" in the latter half of the season, but it wasn't the season finale.
* The ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' series finale "Enemy at the Gate" ended with Atlantis [[spoiler:landing near the Golden Gate Bridge]].
** ''Series/StargateUniverse'' ended on a big one. [[spoiler: ''Destiny'' goes into an extended FTL jump to escape the drone armada, with the entire crew entering hypersleep for the next three years, possibly to be set adrift forever. Eli volunteers to stay behind with the single damaged pod, with two weeks to fix it before the life support fails and he dies.]]
* Season 4 of ''Series/{{Lost}}'' ends with [[spoiler:the Oceanic Six getting off the island and the island ''vanishing'', leaving viewers to wonder what the structure of the show will be in season 5.]]
** Season 5 ends on more of a CliffHanger, but as much as we're worried about [[spoiler: the fate of almost every character on the show]], most of us are more concerned with how the hell the show is going to keep going if what we just saw really happened the way it was implied to.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' did this a lot (probably as a deliberate contrast to ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'', which usually had more traditional cliffhangers):
** Season two ended with the threat of a future Dominion invasion.
** Season three ended with the revelation that there are Changeling spies everywhere.
** Season four ended with the revelation that the Klingon chancellor was a changeling spy. [[spoiler: He wasn't. The real spy was his right-hand man, General Martok.]]
** Season five ended with the Federation having to evacuate Deep Space Nine and the beginning of a war with the Dominion.
** Season six ended with [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Jadzia Dax dead]] and [[TenMinuteRetirement Sisko leaving the station]].
** The last season ended with the crew going their separate ways (and occasionally ascending to a higher plane of existence).
* ''Series/TheATeam'' ended on this (though one episode later aired out of order). At the end of "The Grey Team", the team discusses the possibility of getting pardoned earlier than they thought, as Hannibal was thinking what they would do after getting pardoned.
-->'''Hannibal''': Well, I was thinking, like Bernie and George, what are we gonna do when this thing's over? I mean, what are we really qualified to do?
** However, they soon imply that they might likely continue doing what they did in their fugitive days - go after the bad guys.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** Its fifth season ended with the titular department closed and Mulder and Scully reassigned. TheMovie picked up with this, ending when Mulder and Scully's adventure leads to the re-opening of the X-files, but, surprisingly, when the sixth season starts, though the department is open, Mulder and Scully haven't been returned to it.
** The series itself ended with [[spoiler:Mulder and Scully alive and together but on the run]] and the MythArc essentially unresolved, with [[spoiler:[[AlienInvasion extraterrestrial colonization of Earth]] supposedly proceeding on schedule for 2012 and no obvious way to stop it]]. The 2008 movie provided no further information about the MythArc.
* The season 5 finale of ''Series/HighlanderTheSeries'' ends with [[spoiler: Richie [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dead at Duncan's hand]], and Duncan abandoning his katana and walking off into the night.]]
* ''Series/TheWire'' season 3: Stringer is dead, Avon Barksdale along with the rest of his crew other than Bodie and Slim Charles are in prison, [=McNulty=] decides to quit Major Case Squad and become a beat cop, Colvin is forced to retire and Hamsterdam is torn down.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' season 2: While this is very much a CliffHanger for Lex, for Clark it's a "What Now?" Ending to a T - he's [[spoiler: destroyed his only link to Jor-El, directly causing his mother to lose her baby]], alienated Lana and Chloe, and is in so much emotional turmoil that he ends the season riding away from [[CityOfAdventure Smallville]] [[NotHimself self-medicated]] on [[GRatedDrug Red Kryptonite]]. The next season premiere picks up months later.
* ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' second season ends with one of these, which is made even worse since the series has been ScrewedByTheNetwork.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'':
** ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' has [[spoiler:a major character dead, Torchwood non-existent and Jack having left Earth]].
** ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' ends with [[spoiler:everybody mortal again but with the world economy likely severely impacted. The Families have other plans to take control. Rex is shot by TheMole but comes back to life à la Jack with everybody shocked at this]].
* ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode [[Recap/CommunityS1E25PascalsTriangleRevisited Pascal's Triangle Revisited]] ends in the spring of one school year, and the next season premier picks up with the first day of school in the fall.

* ''Series/SpaceAboveAndBeyond'' ended its first and only season with two members of the 58th squadron safe and sound, two more in the cockpit of a transport falling toward a planet with one of them already unconscious from a head wound, and the fifth one most definitely dead after the wreck of a destroyed enemy fighter hits him head on. Meanwhile, Earth's attempt to strike the enemy homeworld ended in disastrous failure, and we've just learned that their genocidal war might have been provoked by a human corporation that knowingly treaded all over their holy ground. With or without a second season, it was decidedly downbeat and any sense of victory was pretty small-scale.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' ended two of its three seasons like this: season 3 ends with the crew stranded on Terminal and the Liberator destroyed. Season 4 ends with Scorpio destroyed and the crew apparently dead. Season two is a near miss: it ends on an actual CliffHanger with the Liberator staring down an invading armada, but the next season seemingly skips to the end of the war, with the Liberator crew abandoning ship and only returning much later.
* ''Series/TheOthers2000'' ended its first and only season with the entire cast apparently dead thanks to the machinations of an evil force. A cryptic comment by Einer as he dies points to the possibility that, had the series been renewed, the whole thing might have turned out to be a [[ThanatosGambit complex]] [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning plan]].
* This is how season 2 of ''Series/PhilOfTheFuture'' ended...''[[LeftHanging forever]]''. Phil's family [[spoiler:goes back to the future, right after [[LastMinuteHookup he and Keely finally admit their feelings for each other]]. Problem was, they left [[TeamPet Curtis]] back in the 21st century.]] Obviously this was meant to pick up in season 3, or a movie, or ''something'', but no. There was NoEnding, unless you were to interpret it a one off gag and that the family really just needed to quickly pick up Curtis before heading back for good.
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'' ends it's third season on an abnormally frustrating note. It's obvious that the writers assumed there was going to be a fourth season to make everything better.
* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' infamously ended its third season with the Command Center annihilated, the Rangers without their powers and helpless against the bad guys.[[note]]Luckily, that little crisis was resolved next season at the start of ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'', when the Rangers got new powers to fight evil.[[/note]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' loves these:
** Season Two ended with [[spoiler: Azazel dead but still succeeding in opening the gates to hell and releasing numerous demonic entities and spirits. Dean meanwhile has sold his soul to bring Sam back to life and only has a year left to live.]]
** Season Three has [[spoiler: Dean getting killed, leaving Sam mourning over his body.]]
** Season Five sees [[spoiler: Sam getting sucked into Hell and a distraught Dean giving up on being a hunter and settling down with an old flame. And then it's revealed unbeknownst to Dean that Sam has somehow escaped Hell.]] Season 6 picks up a year after this.
** Season Seven concludes with [[spoiler: the brothers killing the head Leviathan, but Dean getting trapped in Purgatory while Sam has no idea what to do to free his brother.]]
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' has its second season conclude with Monica breaking up with Richard while Chandler gets back together with Janice after falling in love with her for real, with the following season picked up a while later. Notable for being the only time a What Now? conclusion was used rather than an outright cliffhanger that had to be immediately resolved next season.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'' ended its second season by [[spoiler: resolving the main story arc of the show by having Mando return Grogu to Luke Skywalker, leaving him without a quest and many fans wondering how the show could even continue. There were also a bunch of loose ends such as Mando accidentally winning Bo-Katan's Darksaber, Gideon claiming to have extracted Grogu's blood, and Boba stealing Jabba's palace in a setup for what is presumed to be a spinoff that hadn't even been announced prior to the episode's airing]].

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' - At the end, [[spoiler:with the Emperor dead, no heirs to the throne, and no clear picture of how the future will play out,]] many [=NPCs=] actually have a chat topic that pretty much says "Well, what now?"
* ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' first ends like this with Noble 6 shooting down the Covenant cruiser from the ground and watching the ''Pillar of Autumn'' escape into space, leaving him/her one of the last living humans on Reach. It's then subverted with a PlayableEpilogue as TheStinger, in which [[spoiler:[[LastStand you are swarmed by an endless horde of enemies as you fight to the last bullet.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype 2}}'' - After [[spoiler:Heller consumes Alex, uses CutscenePowerToTheMax to purge the Red Zone of all viral influence, and fully reunites with his daughter]], Dana stares across the ruined New York skyline at the sunrise and asks "What do we do now?"

* The ''[[Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick Order of the Stick]]'' Azure City arc, whose end is the end of the third compilation book, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0484.html ended]] with [[spoiler: Azure City taken over by hobgoblins, the Order of The Stick broken, and their leader dead.]]

* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' ends with a DownerEnding in Season 1, with Bam being betrayed by Rachel and nearly killed, believed to be dead and taken in by a anti-government conspiracy. The TrueCompanions around Khun, Rak, and Endorsi are in sorrow and decide to help Rachel to the top of the Tower in Bam's stead. After a one month hiatus, we cut to 5 years in the future, where Yuri is still searching for Bam and Bam reappears. With a new identity, a nice hair-do, cool clothes, new powers and a whole lot on his mind.

* ''Series/TheOthers'' ended its first and only season with the entire cast apparently dead thanks to the machinations of an evil force. A cryptic comment by Einer as he dies points to the possibility that, had the series been renewed, the whole thing might have turned out to be a [[ThanatosGambit complex]] [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning plan]].

* The LiveActionAdaptation of ''Manga/{{Devilman}}'' ends with [[spoiler:both hero and villain dying]]... ''after'' the ApocalypseHow. [[KillEmAll Cue the last two living named characters]] climbing to the surface, surrounded by SceneryGorn.

** Children of Earth'' has [[spoiler:a major character dead, Torchwood non-existent and Jack having left Earth]].
** ''Torchwood: Miracle Day'' ends with [[spoiler:everybody mortal again but with the world economy likely severely impacted. The Families have other plans to take control. Rex is shot by TheMole but comes back to life à la Jack with everybody shocked at this]].

* While ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' wraps up fairly neatly, this kind of ending is given to ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''. Hawke is still missing, the companions are scattered, and Varric is (seemingly) unable to give further intelligence. Cassandra and Leliana are both revealed to be working for the Divine, but it's unclear why they're trying to find either Hawke or the Warden.

** Heck, even the MusicalEpisode ends with the song "Where Do We Go From Here?"

* WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}} Season 7 ends with [[spoiler:Master Wu being lost in time and Lloyd vowing to find some way to get him back.]]

* Season 7 of WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}} ends with [[spoiler:Master Wu being lost in time and Lloyd vowing to find some way to get him back.]]

* The season 7 finale of WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}} ends with [[spoiler:Master Wu being lost in time and Lloyd vowing to find some way to get him back.]]

* The season 7 finale of WesternAnimation/Ninjago ends with [[spoiler:Master Wu being lost in time and Lloyd vowing to find some way to get him back.]]

** Season 1:[[spoiler:Dean and Hank are killed]] (in the second season premiere [[spoiler:they come back for far from the first time]])

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'':
** The show ends its ''Secret Invasion'' arc with [[spoiler:the Avengers preventing Queen Veranke from taking over the Earth, then left to reflect on what they've lost during the invasion: Black Panther ''still'' feels too wary of an alien among the team to return to America. The Skrulls had Hulk jailed for a crime he didn't commit. One of the invaders framed Captain America, on international television, of supporting a surrender to the Skrulls. Finally, Lord knows how many aliens still need capturing...]]
** [[spoiler: Those plot threads do get resolved in the following episodes: Cap wins back the trust of humanity with some help from Spider-Man, Panther ends up rejoining the Avengers after they help him protect Wakanda's Vibranium reserve from the Vision, and Hulk is freed after being cleared of his crimes.]]

* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' ends with a DownerEnding in Season 1, with Bam being betrayed by Rachel and nearly killed, believed to be dead and taken in by a anti-government conspiracy. The TrueCompanions around Khun, Rak, and Endorsi are in sorrow and decide to help Rachel to the top of the Tower in Baam's stead. After a one month hiatus, we cut to 5 years in the future, where Yuri is still searching for Bam and Bam reappears. With a new identity, a nice hair-do, cool clothes, new powers and a whole lot on his mind.

* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' ends with a DownerEnding in Season 1, with Baam being betrayed by Rachel and nearly killed, believed to be dead and taken in by a anti-government conspiracy. The TrueCompanions around Koon, Rak and Androssi are in sorrow and decide to help Rachel to the top of the Tower in Baam's stead. After a one month hiatus, we cut to 5 years in the future, where Yuri is still searching for Baam and Baam reappears. With a new identity, a nice hair-do, cool clothes, new powers and a whole lot on his mind.