Series Fauxnale / Live-Action TV

Series Fauxnale in Live-Action TV.

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• The 100 has the fifth season finale, which wraps up most of the major character arcs, and brings the plot to a circle from the beginning, with the idea that the characters will be able to try to find a new home again, this time with a unified front and the benefit of experience, and looking to the future with hope. It even concludes with the credits "End of Book 1", making it clear that the first five seasons are of a piece.
• 24:
  • Episode 13 of the first season, written when the producers were unsure they'd be coming back for another half-day, has Jack rescuing his wife and daughter, and has all the hallmarks of a climactic happy ending. Only the addition of a couple of scenes, revealing a new threat, were necessary for the show to keep on going. This led to one of the hallmarks of the series: invariably, the problem that started the arc of the season (and the villains behind it) always turned out to be Disc-One Final Boss material as either the real plan was helped by the heroes efforts, or the bad guys adjust their strategy and Plan B is even worse than Plan A. Whatever the season was advertised as being about is long-forgotten old news by Episode 15.
  • Season 6 definitely had a finale vibe. We were introduced to the rest of Jack's extended family, Chloe is pregnant, and Bill & Karen are allowed to resign without being prosecuted.
• 1000 Ways to Die was supposed to finish up with Death #1000, which showed a woman visiting her elderly father as he's about to die in the hospital from natural causes (and the narrator concluding that 1000 Ways to Die isn't just a sleazy show depicting the many horrific ways people can die, but it's also a guide to how to live, as most of the people who died on the show weren't good people, while the old man who died led a good, morally upstanding life). Then, the show was un-cancelled...
• The half season episode of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. titled "Crystal Hawks" was structured in case the series wasn't extended for a full season: Brisco catches John Bly, forms a partnership with Lord Bowler, resolves a No One Could Survive That! moment from the pilot, and finally gets some vague information on the series MacGuffin, the Orb. The final scene where Socrates tells Brisco that Bly had escaped Diabolus ex Machina style was put in once the full season order had come through.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't renewed for a Season 6 until about a week before the Season 5 finale aired. Thus, said finale is designed very much like an ending (even being titled "The End"), and wraps up with Coulson and May leaving the team and going to Tahiti in order to spend Coulson's last days in peace. Meanwhile, the rest of the team flies off on another mission.
• All in the Family:
  • "The Stivics Go West", which wrapped up Season 8 with Mike, Gloria, and Joey bidding a tearful goodbye to Archie and Edith and moving to California. Norman Lear had indeed intended for this to be the show's finale, but CBS executives (along with Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton) convinced him to let the show continue for another season without his participation.
  • It can be argued that the show's actual finale, "Too Good Edith", was this as well, since All in the Family was then Retooled into Archie Bunker's Place, which lasted for four more seasons. Ironically enough, that show — and thus the entire 13-year story of Archie Bunker — never got a proper finale.
• Arrested Development:
  • The Season 1 finale, "Let 'Em Eat Cake", which ends with George Bluth escaping prison, Tobias and Lindsay reconciled, George Michael deciding not to pursue Maeby, and Michael Bluth deciding to let the family fend for themselves.
  • Almost all of the show's season finales were like this. Most noticeably, the Season 3 finale, "Development Arrested", was the actual finale for many years until the show was brought back for a Netflix revival in 2013.
• The 100th episode of Angel' (You're Welcome) can be considered a bittersweet candidate for one, it even begins with a 10-Minute Retirement from the main character. The episode sees the entire team come together as one of Angel's chief rivals makes his move, and concludes with the resolution and completion of Cordelia Chase's whole character arc.
• Arrow:
  • If it weren't for confirmation of a Season 4 literally right as it ended, you'd be certain that Season 3 was its last. Oliver retires to live a life with Felicity knowing that the city is in safe hands with the other superheroes around in Black Canary and Speedy, Diggle is hinted at becoming the new Green Arrow, Ray gets plenty of set-up for his spin-off show, Malcolm becomes the new Ra's Al-Ghul thanks to his deal with Oliver, and Nyssa returns to the League of Assassins in order to bide her time until she can avenge Sara's murder. Even in the flashbacks, Oliver is show to be capable of returning to Starling City when he wants but holds it off for his own reasons. Essentially all the major players and plots are accounted for in a fashion that doesn't leave viewers hanging in case the show couldn't have gotten renewed.
  • Similarly, despite already being renewed for Season 6, the Season 5 finale also had all the markings of a Grand Finale — it returns to Lian Yu which ends up entirely destroyed; has a Rogues Gallery Showcase of many of the series' most popular antagonists, and features a Final Battle with a Big Bad whose origins trace all the way back to Oliver's actions as the Hood back in Season 1. Plus, the Myth Arc of having flashbacks depicting Oliver's "five years in hell" backstory finally comes to a conclusion, bringing the series full circle as it revisits the show's opening scene of Oliver being rescued from the island.
• Happened to Babylon 5 when it appeared that it was going to be canceled at the end of its fourth season (five seasons had been planned). So J. Michael Straczynski (the show's creator and writer) squeezed the first half of the fifth season's plot into the three penultimate episodes at the end of Season 4 in order to resolve most of the major story arcs, resulting in season four's second half containing nothing but Wham Episodes. Then the show got Un-Canceled, Season 5 happened on schedule, and JMS had to scramble to fill the gap in season five's plot by stretching out what was planned as a minor continuing storyline into a half-season-long arc. Most fans agree that the first half of season five is the weakest stretch of the entire show. It's worth noting that they filmed the last episode of the fourth season as the series-ending finale, but rather than run it there it was pushed to the actual end of the series.
• The Season 4 mid-season premiere of Battlestar Galactica, "Sometimes a Great Notion", was written with the intent of serving as a finale in the event that the 2007 writer's strike prevented the remaining episodes from being made. It would have been quite the cliffhanger.
• Blake's 7: The third season ends with the destruction of the protagonists' almost-magical spaceship, the Liberator. It also kills off both chief villain Servalan and (off screen) original series lead Blake, leading to hasty resurrections when the show came back. In the fourth season, the actual series finale very strongly suggested the protagonists were all killed, but left a little wiggle room in case there was a fifth season. (There wasn't.)
• The Season 10 finale of Bones ended this way, with Angela and Hodgins deciding not to move to Paris after all but to stay in DC, Booth recovering from his lapse into his old gambling addiction and reconciling with Brennan, and the two of them deciding to leave DC for a quieter life in Kansas, in order to protect both Christine and their as-yet-unborn second child. The show was still on the bubble at the time, so the producers wanted to end on a quieter And the Adventure Continues note in case this was the last season, but the show was renewed shortly before the finale aired.
• Breaking Bad:
  • Though not explicitly, the Season 4 finale was written to invoke a feeling of And the Adventure Continues, since Vince Gilligan was not sure about a fifth season due to struggles between AMC and Sony.
  • Season 5's second course was dubbed "The Final Season" and its definitive ending is partly what made the series so famous. However, the story was expanded upon with the Spin-Off prequel series Better Call Saul (which also functions as a slight sequel due to the flash forwards taking place after the main series' end) and the sequel movie El Camino.
• The Brittas Empire: "In The Beginning..." was intended to be the final episode of the show, and was a Distant Finale which gave everyone a happy ending. However, the BBC renewed it for two more seasons, although it was made without the original writers or Laura.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • When The WB refused to renew Buffy for a sixth season, Joss Whedon assumed that this meant the end of the show, so he ended it in the most spectacular and final way possible: by killing Buffy. This left him with a very difficult hole to dig out of, so to speak, when UPN picked the show up for another two seasons.
  • Earlier, the Season 3 two-part finale "Graduation Day" served as a conclusion to the era of the show first envisioned as 'high school is hell', saw the destruction of the school that served as the main setting, killed off several characters such as Principal Snyder, Larry and Harmony (though she later returned as a vampire) and saw Angel leaving town for good to do his own spin-off. The fourth season would relocate to a college setting, drop other characters like Cordelia (who went to do Angel) and eventually Oz and take the show in a new direction.
• Bunk'd was originally set to end with the third season finale "Up, Up and Away", given that the Ross kids have accepted once-in-a-lifetime opportunities with their family and since none of them will be here next summer, Camp Kikiwaka has to be sold. In the end, they sell it to their longtime friend Lou. However, the show has gotten extreme popularity, and because of that, it continued on after its third season without the Rosses from there, and eventually became the first live-action Disney Channel show to exceed four seasons.
• Castle ended its seventh season on a quieter note without any glaring cliffhangers, unless you count whether Beckett will decide to accept the rank of Captain or take Kaufmann up on his suggestion to run for State Senate, and ended with Castle and his family and friends having dinner together and looking forward to the future. As with the Arrow and Bones examples cited above, the series was on the bubble at the time the finale was produced, but renewed around the time it aired and lasted one more season.
• Central Park West's first season concluded with an episode that functioned as this, given the show was in danger of being cancelled due to middling ratings. Lead character Stephanie Wells returns to her publisher job (having been shuffled off to a retreat in the previous episode) and reasserts her dominance at Communique, humiliating her managing editor in the process, before she and her husband decide to leave New York and take their chances back in Seattle, having had enough of the politics and backstabbing and wanting to save their marriage. Despite this feeling of finality, the episode did set up additional story arcs, including newspaper columnist Alex deciding to fake her pregnancy so she can marry Peter Fairchild, and a media tycoon comes to New York and enlists stock broker Gil to help him take over Rush Media.
• Charmed:
  • In Season 1, the episode "Wicca Envy" was meant to act as the finale should the show not get renewed for more episodes. It features the closure of the Rex/Hannah story arc and features a nice uplifting ending where the sisters proclaim themselves "witches for life".
  • The Season 4 finale "Witch Way Now" has an Angel of Destiny outright spelling out that the Charmed Ones have achieved their shared destiny of defeating the Source of All Evil, and are offered the chance to give up their magic to lead normal lives; making it almost feel like an epilogue to a series-long arc. It similarly ends with the sisters opting to keep their magic, and Piper discovering she's pregnant, but leaves a couple of loose ends open in case there was a fifth season. Funnily enough, the ending shot from that finale would be re-used for the actual series four years later.
  • Season 5 had ended on a cliff hanger, confident they would be getting a sixth season, and that season finale featured a big conclusion to a year-long arc involving a lot of high stakes, and a resolution that would have served as a potential series finale had they not been brought back for Season 7.
  • Season 7 ended with the gals forsaking magic and assuming new identities, due to the possibility that the show might not be renewed. The original draft had the sisters outright dying in the fight against Zankou, but it was changed to only faking their deaths to leave it open. It was always known that Season 8 would be the end, so it wrapped everything up for a definite conclusion.
• Chuck: Since the show lived in a state of perpetual doubt, it was peppered with a good number of them.
  • Season 2 had "Chuck Versus the Ring", with Chuck and Morgan both quitting the Buy-More only to return the very next season, Chuck's nemesis dying a Heroic Death, and Chuck losing the Intersect only to get a new, more powerful one.
  • Season 3 had "Chuck Versus the Other Guy", in which Chuck's nemesis died and Chuck and Sarah resolve their Unresolved Sexual Tension, and "Chuck Versus the Ring, Part II" has the Buy-More destroyed only to be rebuilt by the CIA in time for the next season.
  • Season 4 was originally planned as a 13-episode season, before being extended to 24; and the show's future was still in doubt. The mid-season one was "Chuck Versus the Push Mix", where Ellie gives birth to Clara and Chuck and Sarah get engaged. Episode 24 ended with Chuck and Sarah getting married, Vivian happily reunited with her father (and leaving the newlyweds Volkoff Industries), Chuck and Sarah getting the team back together for their own private spy venture... and Morgan becoming the Intersect. The title? Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger.
• The intended finale of Citizen Smith got turned into a Fauxnale due to Executive Meddling. Originally, the series was going to end with Wolfie Smith being chased out of Tooting by an irate local gangster. The BBC decided that they didn't want the series to have a Downer Ending though, and so they took an episode that was originally intended for the middle of the final season and repurposed it as a Christmas Special, implying that the whole mess seen in the finale blew over and Smith's life went back to normal.
• Community:
  • With its lagging ratings and mid-season hiatus, the series' continuation into a fourth season was uncertain. The third season finale ended with a Last Episode Theme Reprise, a relatively happy ending for the main characters, and a sense that "if it ends here... that's not too bad."
  • The fourth season had one of these as well, since they didn't expect the last second renewal for a fifth season. The finale ends with Jeff and Pierce finally graduating from Greendale and Jeff giving a touching speech about how his friends have changed him and made him a better person throughout the course of the series. He then states that even though he's leaving, he'll still pop in from time to time to hang out with his old friends. It's ambiguous enough to both serve as a Grand Finale moment (but not as blatant as the Season 3 finale) and open the door for future episodes.
  • The fifth season also has one of these, since nobody involved could have predicted that the series would be picked up by Yahoo Screen. This finale involved the discovery of the original founder of Greendale and his massive wealth, allowing the study group to prevent Greendale from being turned into a Subway Sandwich University, only for Chang to take all the money and spend it on replacing his teeth with diamonds without anyone (apart from a concerned Abed) noticing. The ending also had Abed commenting that, if they weren't coming back the following year, it would be because an asteroid has destroyed human civilization. ("And that's canon.")
• Corner Gas' Season 4 finale "Gopher It", where Hank pitches an idea that takes off, eventually leading to Corner Gas and the Ruby getting bought out by a large chain gas station, Emma being elected mayor, and Lacey leaving Dog River to open up a restaurant in Toronto (among other things). At the end of the episode, it is all revealed to be one giant Imagine Spot by Hank after Brent, Wanda, and Lacey told him to think about his idea before pitching it. It was actually a parody of Grand Finales; the show's creator did end it on his own terms two years later, with a much more subdued finale.
• CSI: NY did this in its seventh season with "Exit Strategy", which had Mac leave the NY crime lab to work on identifying the remains of 9/11 victims. It turned into a 10-Minute Retirement, and he came back in Season 8. In Season 8's finale, Mac was shot by a drug store robber and spent the episode in a Near-Death Experience. The show was renewed for a ninth season, which ended up being the last, and its finale concludes with a heartwarming voice-over monologue from Mac, followed by the scene many fans had been hoping for ever since he professed his love to Christine, an equally tear-jerking marriage proposal.
• The second season of the Dallas 2012 Revival ended with a plot that more-or-less wrapped up the overarching storyline that stretched back all the way to the beginning of the original series, as the showrunners didn't know if they'd be renewed for a third season. The Ewings finally beat Cliff Barnes once and for all, by framing him for J.R.'s death, putting him in prison for a life sentence and winning Ewing Oil back in the process. While there were still a couple of lingering plot threads (namely, Elena turning bad and going down to Mexico to ally with a childhood friend, John Ross cheating on Pamela with Emma), the entire plot was resolved and all the characters were happy. Compare this to the third-season ending, which concluded with multiple cliffhangers (Christopher seemingly being blown up in an explosion, Pamela having medical issues, Southfork being set on fire again) that were never resolved due to its cancellation.
• The Season 1 finale of Dead Like Me was filmed as an adequate ending to the series, with George finally accepting her life as a Reaper and her family reconciling with her death, but the series ultimately got one more season... and then a direct-to-DVD movie five years after that. Though a lot of fans choose to ignore that last one.
• Defiance ended its first season on a cliffhanger with several long-running questions about the Myth Arc unanswered, but ended its second season spectacularly, with all questions answered and all plot threads neatly resolved. Then it got renewed for a third season and the writers clearly had no idea where to take the story...
• Doctor Who:
  • During the making of Season 26, it became clear to the production team that the show likely wasn't going to be renewed for another season (despite one being planned by the writing team), thanks to how heavily ratings fell over the past few years. Consequently, a closing epilogue was added to the last episode of the season finale, "Survival", in order to wrap everything up. The show would eventually receive a continuation via the 1996 TV movie before resuming regular airing in 2005.
    "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace — we've got work to do!"
  • Death Comes to Time might have been intended as this for Doctor Who. It came out in 2001, when the show had been off-air for 12 years, save a TV movie in 1996, although the huge Expanded Universe was still running. It has a universe where the Time Lords have either been mostly killed off or are withdrawing, possibly tying into the Eighth Doctor Adventures at the time. It also has the Doctor dying in a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy rogue Time Lord Tannis and save his companion Ace, and Ace gaining Time Lord powers, bringing about a new age for the Universe. However it, oddly enough, features the Seventh Doctor instead of the Eighth, who was the current Doctor, and in many ways feels unlike Doctor Who, with aspects like changing Time Lords from Sufficiently Advanced Aliens to Reality Warpers. Thankfully Doctor Who was revived fourth years later, and Death Comes to Time is now generally regarded as an Alternate Continuity, though some fans use it to de-canonize the TV movie and revived series.
  • In a downplayed example that concerned an era rather than the entire show, the two-part Series 10 finale "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls" was supposed to be the Grand Finale for the Twelfth Doctor. It wraps up his Myth Arc, gives definitive fates to both of his companions, his Arch-Enemy Missy, and her previous incarnation Harold Saxon, and has a spectacular Final Battle against several generations of Cybermen which results in the Doctor having to regenerate. However, when incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall informed outgoing Steven Moffat that he didn't want to use the annual Christmas Episode as the Thirteenth Doctor's debut story, and Moffat then learned that there would be no more Christmas episodes if a year was skipped, he rewrote the story to give a "Ray of Hope" Ending to the Twelfth Doctor that directly led into his actual final episode, "Twice Upon a Time", which wraps up a few more loose ends before he becomes Thirteen.
  • When Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker stepped down from their roles as showrunner and Doctor respectively, there was no plan of succession in place at the time. Chibnall would write Whittaker's exit, "The Power of the Doctor", knowing it could potentially be the last episode of the show before another extensive hiatus at the very least. The story ties up as much of 13's loose ends as possible and copiously references the Classic Series, bringing back many past companions and Doctors in significant roles and resolving many loose ends that fans had spent years clamouring for (such as reconciling Tegan and Ace with the Fifth and Seventh Doctors, and giving one of the first companions dating back to the 60s, Ian Chesterton, a return cameo). Fortunately, Russell T Davies returned to the programme and Jodie handed the keys to the TARDIS to a returning David Tennant, who would keep the TARDIS warm for the start of Ncuti Gatwa's tenure in 2023.
• Dollhouse has one of these as its DVD-only 13th episode of the first season, jumping ahead a decade or so and showing that the technology showcased has, not unsurprisingly, been used for terrible purposes. The end result? Worldwide apocalypse! Shockingly, the show was not canceled, but the second (and now final) season moved in a direction that indicates that episode is the likely conclusion. This is a Joss Whedon show, so a happy ending was probably never likely anyway.
• Downton Abbey Season 2 ended with Mary and Matthew getting engaged and Sybil getting pregnant.
  • The TV series finale (Season 6) ends up serving as this due to the two feature films serving as a continuation of the series.
• Due South:
  • The second part of "Victoria's Secret" was intended to be a series finale, since it wasn't known if the show would return after the first season. When it was renewed, "Letting Go" was filmed to give the storyline a happy ending.
  • The second-season finale, "Flashback", is a clip show that was intended to be the final episode (finishing with a "journey continues" ending) after it was cancelled by CBS... then it was picked up by CTV Television and resumed in Canada.
  • The third-season finale, "Mountie on the Bounty," ended with Fraser choosing to stay on with the Chicago Consulate and had a definite finality to it... and then the show was renewed again for a fourth and final season. Though whether MotB is a finale or not depends on your region—some areas air the third and fourth seasons as a single season.
• Elementary had "Whatever Remains, However Improbable", the Season 6 finale, which was written to be the last episode of the series and had Sherlock and Joan transfer over from New York to London, the traditional Holmsian setting. But CBS ended up ordering a final, 13-episode season, after having already increased the number of episodes in Season 6 from 13 to 21.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had "Philadelphia Story" which was supposed to be the finale but when NBC brought the show back, they had NBC reps kidnap Will and bring him back to Bel Air in the beginning of the next season.
• Friday Night Lights: "State", the Season 1 finale, where the Panthers go to the state championship. The third season finale "Tomorrow Blues" also served as this in case the move to DirecTV didn't work.
• The Flash: The Season 8 finale ended up being this after the series was renewed for a ninth season. It was originally written as a series finale as it was expected that the show would end after eight seasons and troubles in the CW led to a renewal being uncertain. To bring this point home, the season ended with The Reverse-Flash finally being stripped of his Joker Immunity and being Killed Off for Real.
• The writers of Glee weren't sure the show was going to be picked up for a full first season. The 13th episode (which was as many as they had confirmed at first) was specifically written to be decent enough series finale if they got cancelled. (Glee club won their competition and the major plots of the first 13 were adequately wrapped up) However, the show ended up being a hit and got picked up for at least three seasons before the first season was finished.
• As Gotham is an origin story for the familiar Batman mythos we all know and love, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Season 3 finale is the final episode of the series — all the Canon Foreigners are Killed Off for Real or revealed to have been a Canon Character All Along, Penguin not only retakes his spot as Gotham's top crime boss but also opens his famous Iceberg Lounge, Gordon is more determined than ever to be the cop Gotham needs (setting him up for his role as The Commissioner), Selina is taking her first steps towards becoming Catwoman, and in the final scene, Bruce is on his first outing as a vigilante (complete with proto-Batsuit). However, the show had already been renewed for a fourth season by the time the episode aired.
• Strangely, the Volume 4 finale to Heroes feels like one of these. Sylar is seemingly defeated once and for all, and all the Heroes come together to contemplate the future and start "a new beginning". There's just two little hitches in the plan...
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • The first 13 episodes ended with "Drumroll Please" in which Victoria would be the mother. When more episodes were ordered, Victoria was retconned into being just another of Ted's girlfriends. Similarly the last episode of Season 3 was created with the idea that Stella would be the mother if the show didn't get renewed.
  • The Season 4 episode "The Leap" was also written as a possible send off for the characters which could easily function as a series finale.
• Kamen Rider Den-O ends on a satisfactory note, but was so popular movies were made to follow it. Then there was "Farewell, Kamen Rider Den-O: The Final Countdown." That sounds like a done deal, right? Nope, then came The Onigashima Warship, and the Super Den-O Trilogy. The name "trilogy" makes the third of those films final-sounding... but then came "OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go, Kamen Rider!" And so, the climax goes on.
• Legends of Tomorrow: the penultimate episode of season 7 serves as one as the Legends agree to a truce with Evil Gideon where they all retire to live out the futures they were shown while Gideon, who has been resurrected into a human, becomes Captain of the Waverider with Gary accompanying her. This doesn’t last as Gwyn is killed when he tried to alter a fixed point, forcing the Legends to come together again and save him.
• The first two season finales of Leverage were written to be possible series finales. "The Second David Job" (Season 1) ends with Nate getting Blackpoole ousted from IYS and the team splitting up. "The Maltese Falcon Job" (Season 2) ends with Nate shot and about to be arrested while the team escapes. The show ended up running five seasons.
• Little House on the Prairie wraps up things at the end of Season 4. Mary comes to terms with her blindness and the entire citizenship of the now financially crippled town of Walnut Grove gather at the church one last time to say goodbye. The show was then picked up for a fifth season.
• Lucifer:
  • Unlike previous seasons, the fourth season does not end with a Cliffhanger and features no Sequel Hook. Chloe finally accepts Lucifer for what he is and confesses her feelings, but has to part ways with him as he reluctantly retakes the mantle of the King of Hell to prevent more demons from invading Earth. Since the series started in the first place because Lucifer abandoned his post in Hell to essentially have fun, by returning, it neatly closes the series' Myth Arc and shows Lucifer's Character Development as he chooses to do what is needed instead of what he wants. Other plotlines resolved include Amenadiel's difficulty accepting the complexities of the human world, Dan's struggle to move on from Charlotte's death, Ella's Crisis of Faith, and Maze's decision to carve a separate life of her own. If Netflix didn't choose to renew it for a fifth season, it could have been a definitive end for the series (albeit a very bittersweet one).
  • The fifth season and its finale were produced with the intent of being the final season leading to major developments like Chloe and Lucifer finally hooking up, Dan learning about Lucifer's true nature, Maze and Eve getting back together, and a final arc which ends with Lucifer becoming the new God. Once again, Netflix decided to renew at the last minute. The producers dealt with this by cutting out the ten-minute "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue that was supposed to follow Lucifer's ascension so they could expand the storylines into season 6.
• MA Dtv's final episode on FOX was the Season 14 episode called "MADtv Gives Back", which is really just a Clip Show of the show's best sketches framed around a pledge drive, featuring celebrity guests and the show's most memorable recurring characters taking calls. This was back in 2009. Seven years later, the show was revived for a limited-run 15th season on another network.
• Magnum, P.I.'s episode "Limbo" in which Magnum walked off into the sunset - after having been shot and in a coma, visiting his friends one last time as a spirit.
• The third-season finale of The Mentalist would have been the big finish if they hadn't been renewed, given that it ended with Jane finally killing Red John. Then season four happened after all, and the first episode hastily re-establishes the status quo by revealing it wasn't him after all, and letting Jane off with the murder.
• Miami Vice features a very interesting example of this. The show, which premiered in 1985, faced dismal ratings when it aired and was in danger of being canceled. To that end, the producers Retooled the series with a two-part episode that also served as a finale if the show was canned. The 2-parter, "Calderone's Return", killed off Crockett and Tubbs' commanding officer, resolved Crockett's relationship with his ex-wife Caroline and completed Tubbs' quest for vengeance against the man who killed his brother...then the series was renewed for a second season, and the show continued.
• Murder, She Wrote: Season 5 ends with a two-parter in which Jessica meets an opposite number of sorts, who makes her question whether her workaholic approach to mystery writing is a good thing, and concludes with her instead deciding to take some time off with Doc Hazlett. While Angela Lansbury was seriously considering giving up the role due to the exhausting schedule required, they instead moved to the format where many episodes would feature Jessica's friends, or stories she was writing, with her just introducing the story.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • Season 7 finale, the last on Comedy Central, where Mike and the Bots escape the SOL and Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, and Dr. Forrester is transformed into a baby.
  • Season 10 ended with Pearl accidentally sending the SOL crashing down to Earth, and Mike and the Bots living in an apartment. This was the ending for 15 years, before Joel Hodgson brought the show to Kickstarter, where it was successfully funded for a full new season.
  • Season 11 ends with Jonah eaten by Reptilicus Metallicus during his forced wedding to Kinga Forrester, as there was no guarantee of Netflix greenlighting another season when it was shot. Season 12 was announced a few months later (during the Turkey Day marathon), and after it aired the show was canceled... only for Joel to announce in April 2021 via another Kickstarter campaign that he was planning to start his own streaming platform so that he could bring the show back yet again.
• Word of God says that the episodes of NewsRadio at the end of seasons two, three, and four were made with the expectation that they would be the finale. The actual finale was also made with enough wiggle room in case the show could continue.
• Night Court: Season 8 is over. Dan quits his job and loses the Phil Foundation fortune. More importantly, Harry and Christine have professed their love to one another. OK, that's the end. What's that? We've been renewed? Oh, crap!
• Northern Exposure: "The Quest", where the show's main character finishes his work in Alaska.
• Odd Squad: Much like the Littlest Pet Shop (2012) example below, the show follows the idea of "writing every season finale as the series finale".
  • The Season 1 finale, "O is Not For Over", revolves around Olive being promoted to the Management department from Investigation, and Otto having to deal with her being gone while also being an easy target for Odd Todd's latest evil scheme. By the end of the episode, Otto, having defeated Odd Todd for good, is also promoted to the department alongside his partner, and the two leave Precinct 13579 to co-run Orville's precinct. This episode would also mark the final time Dalila Bela and Filip Geljo would play the role in the show (they would go on to do voiceovers for their characters in OddTube, and briefly reprise their roles in Odd Squad: The Movie). However, the show was renewed for a second season months before "O is Not For Over" premiered, and both the episode and the Season 2 premiere, "First Day", had its same-day airdate changed from March 7, 2016 to June 20, 2016 so they could be tied together for the Odd Squad: Agents of Change event airing on PBS Kids.
  • The Season 2 finale also got this treatment. The event Odds and Ends, which is comprised of "Who is Agent Otis?" and "Odds and Ends", aired in January of 2019, and revolves around Otis being discovered as a former villain, with him and Oprah getting kicked off Odd Squad and Ohlm taking over while revealing himself as the true Big Bad of the season. It also has Oprah being promoted to the position of the Big O at the end of the episode. Like the previous season finale, this would mark the final appearance of an actor: Isaac Kragten as Otis, and it seemed to be the case for Anna Cathcart (Olympia), Olivia Presti (Oona) and Millie Davis (Oprah) as well before it was revealed that they would reprise their roles in some form or another. ^note Anna would make a voiceover cameo in the Season 2 premiere of OddTube, Olivia would go on to have voiceover roles in the Odd Squadcast as Oona, and Millie would be part of the core cast of Season 3 as the Big O. However, two months after the finale aired, the show was picked up for a third season entitled Odd Squad Mobile Unit, which can either serve as a third season of Odd Squad or as a Spin-Off of the show depending on mileage.
  • The Season 3 mid-season finale was a three-parter comprised of the episodes "16-and-a-Half Blocks", "Follow the Leader", and "End of the Road" that was compressed into one event titled Odd Squad: End of the Road. It features the Mobile Unit attempting to expose the identity of The Shadow and stop her from causing oddness around the world with her Villain Network, and also has Opal departing the group to help The Shadow (now going by Olizabeth), revealed to be her younger sister, repair the damage she caused in numerous countries. Three months before the finale aired in the United States, however, it was announced that an extension of the season was in production.
• While the seventh-season episode of The Office (US), "Goodbye, Michael", is not technically an instance of this trope (as the show was always intended to continue past the departure of Steve Carrell's Michael Scott), it certainly feels like it could have brought a serviceable end to the series. Interestingly, for such a major change in the show's history, "Goodbye, Michael" wasn't even the season finale; there were still three more episodes left.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • "Going Home", where the entire plot of the series is wrapped up completely in a Bittersweet Ending up until a very literal Sequel Hook shows up at the last minute. A strange case of this trope since it was only the midseason finale, with another eleven episodes already in production when it aired, so the makers of the show obviously already knew it wasn't going to be the end when making it.
  • "The Final Battle" in Season 6 is a more straight example, as it once again wraps up the series' plot and gave sendoffs to most of the main cast, but the creators did not know for sure if there would be another season afterward. As it turns out, there was, and it would be that following season's finale that was the ending of the series.
• One Tree Hill had many of these:
  • First, with the gang graduating high school and then Lucas and Peyton driving away with their baby.
  • Then at the end of season 7, the cast is shown playing on a snowy hill, and the parting shot was to have been all of them walking up the hill. When a renewal was assured, a cliffhanger scene was tacked on after that.
  • The final scene in Season 8 recreates the first scene of the series, with Jamie replacing Lucas as he dribbles a basketball across the bridge.
• Only Fools and Horses: The December 1996 trilogy of Heroes and Villains, Modern Men, and Time On Our Hands were originally intended to be the Grand Finale for the show (the final episode pulling 24.1 million viewers), but another trilogy broadcast between 2001 and 2003 soon came.
• The Outer Limits (1995): The Season Six finale "Final Appeal" was intended as the final episode as the series had been cancelled by Showtime but it was picked up for a seventh and final season by the Sci-Fi Channel.
• Parks and Recreation: According to series co-creator Michael Schur, the show's shaky ratings constantly made its future an uncertain one, with it getting renewed for more seasons just barely by the skin of its teeth, so each season finale was written in a way it could also double as a series finale.
  • Since Parks was a mid-season replacement in Season 3, the showrunners were worried that it would be canceled soon after, so they wrote the Season 3 finale, "Lil Sebastian", as a possible series finale.
  • The Season 4 finale, "Win, Lose or Draw", was also written as a respectable finale with Leslie winning the city council election.
  • The Season 5 episode "Leslie and Ben" was also written as a series finale because it was the last episode of the front 13 produced. However, the actual Season 5 finale averted this, as the show did get a certain renewal.
  • A unique case with the Season 6 finale "Moving Up", which ends with Leslie accepting a new job with the National Parks Department, the Unity Concert, and a 3-year time skip, giving off a Grand Finale vibe. The show had already been renewed but the storylines of Season 6 were well in place pre-renewal, so they just went with it and Season 7 was a Post-Script Season.
• Planet Ajay's finale episode, "Highlights Show", is set up to be like this, and likely would have been a straight example if the show went on any longer after its only 13-episode season. The episode is a Clip Show where Chips the robot is trying to remind Ajay, who is packing up to go on a 2,517-year-long trip around the universe, of all that his friends did for him on Planet Ajay, but he fails to persuade him not to take the trip. Ajay decides against going on the trip at the last second, however, and he instead decides to throw a party for everyone on Planet Ajay... but he makes this decision right around the end of his 30-minute stay on Planet Ajay (Ajay travels to the planet via a magic ring whose magic wears out after 30 minutes), and he has to travel back to Earth.

• Power Rangers has had a bunch of these; even if you don't consider the Super Sentai formula was adopted after Season 6, making every season finale a series finale, because of the amount of times it has been Un-Canceled:
  • Due to a lack of understanding and faith in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for long-term survival by the various networks, when it was finally given its chance by Fox it was only meant to last for one season of 40 episodes total, only to be replaced by a more suitable long-term show once found. The show's intended series finale would have been the two-part episode "Doomsday" in which Rita Repulsa would have been permanently defeated in a similar manner as her counterpart in Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Due to the show's unforeseen popularity however, the ending of "Doomsday" was changed at the last minute to leave open the possibility of future episodes. In addition, new suits and footage were quickly and specially commissioned from Toei by Saban to expand the first season to 60 episodes total, as Saban had only minimal usable footage of Zyuranger left after the first 40 episodes. At the same time Saban also secured the rights to use footage from subsequent Super Sentai shows for future Power Rangers seasons.
  • The finale of Power Rangers in Space, "Countdown to Destruction," was also made to end the series, with almost all the villains of the past and present launching a full-scale conquest of the universe, only for Zordon's death being required for his power to spread through the universe, reducing the overwhelming majority of the villains to dust and purifying a small handful of fan-favorites into non-evil humans.
  • Wild Force was also meant to serve as the last season for the series, as the plan was for Disney (who'd bought out the series) to end it and put it into syndication. The seasonal content reflected this; in addition to featuring a 10th anniversary special that had every Red Ranger ever return, the two-parter finale was tellingly named "The End of the Power Rangers." And then someone convinced Disney to move filming to New Zealand and cut costs by a third.
  • The season finale of Power Rangers RPM was supposed to be the series finale until Saban picked up the rights to the franchise again. It is the finale for Disney's ownership of the show, for better or worse. Its predecessor, Power Rangers Jungle Fury, was also intended to be the last season, but Bandai, who made the toys, begged them into one more season - RPM.
  • The 30th anniversary offerings Once & Always, and the ten episode Power Rangers Cosmic Fury are a faxunale for the franchise before a lengthy hiatus, and the Grand Finale for the production's twenty year stint in New Zealand.
• Prison Break: Season 4 ends with both the General and Christina Scofield dead and the flashforward epilogue revealing that Michael Scofield has died not long after. The TV Movie, titled ‘The Final Break’ which serves as the original Grand Finale, reveals that Michael died via Heroic Sacrifice by electrocuting himself so Sara can escape prison. He did this because his brain tumor had returned and he wasn’t going to live long anyway. Eight years later, the show was revived for a fifth season titled ‘Resurrection’ which revealed that Michael faked his death and has been working for a rogue CIA organisation who caused Sara’s arrest in the first place. He was forced to work for them so his family could have their freedom.
• The frequent uncertainty over the future of Red Dwarf since it was Un-Canceled in 2009 means that each series finale has had to be written bearing in mind that it might be the last ever (excluding the eleventh series, as it was filmed back-to-back with the twelfth series). Including the original 1988-99 run, there are five different episodes that could have served as the last ever. The more recent ones have more consciously tried to serve as potential last ever episodes; "The Beginning" provides a Bookend to the very first episode, and "Skipper" is largely based around Continuity Porn.
• Saturday Night Live has several:
  • The last episode of season five hosted by Buck Henry with musical guests Andrew Gold, Andrae Crouch, and Voices of Unity. It even ended with the remnants of the original "Not Ready for Primetime" cast running out of the studio as the "ON AIR" light flashed off for (what seemed like it would be) the final time.
  • ...Then along came NBC's decision to continue the show, which, at first with Jean Doumanian and her cast (save for Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo), was a bad idea. The last Doumanian-produced episode hosted by Bill Murray was also written as the last one...until Dick Ebersol stepped in as Doumanian's replacement.
  • The last episode of season 11 (hosted by Anjelica Huston and Billy Martin with musical guest George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic) was written as the series finale as well, due to the low ratings and terrible reviews the show had gotten during the season. The final scene had everyone in the cast (except for Jon Lovitz) locked in a room that Lorne had set on fire. When the show was given a second chance at life, the final scene (and everything about season 11) was written off as All Just a Dream ("...a horrible, horrible dream").
  • The last episode of season 20 (hosted by David Duchovny), much like season 11, was also a series fauxnale that had a large majority of cast members killed off (as seen in the "Beastman" cold opening and the last sketch where the popular male cast members all throw themselves in a polar bear cage exhibit at the zoo).
• Scrubs was intended at least two years beforehand to end with its eighth season. It almost didn't get an eighth season due to the TV Strikes, but Channel Hopped from NBC to ABC (who owned the show) and ended with a Grand Finale that both poked fun and emulated most series finales... before being picked up for its ninth season, with a mostly new cast.
• SeaQuest DSV:
  • "An Ocean on Fire", where the titular sub is destroyed.
  • Happened the following season: "Splashdown", where the titular sub is abducted by aliens, brought to an alien planet to save one faction from the genocidal evil faction, realize they're actually working for the evil faction and try to stop the evil faction, have most of the main cast trapped in an underwater facility which they blow up (either being incinerated or drowned), the sub being sunk in combat with a huge hole punched through the ship, and only Lucas (a boy genius), Dagwood (a genetically engineered gentlegiant), and Darwin (a regular dolphin) having escaped. Episode ends with Lucas promising Dagwood they'd somehow find a way back to earth and make sure the seaQuest's fate wasn't forgotten... followed up with the caption "seaQuest DSV will return..."
• 7th Heaven is a weird case, as they weren't told to wrap it up because they were being canceled—they were intending to end the show after 10 seasons. Then The CW told the writers that they wanted the show around to help with the transitional period after the merger, so make an eleventh season. It... wasn't as well-received as the previous seasons.
• Season 1 of Sledge Hammer! ended with a very large bang, as Inspector Sledge "Trust me, I know what I'm doing" Hammer attempted to disarm a nuke... and failed. When the show got picked up for a second season, the cliffhanger was handwaved away by setting the new episodes "five years earlier", while continuing all ongoing story elements and character development unchanged. More precisely, they explained that the Season 1 finale took place five years later.
• Stargate SG-1 had four of these throughout its run: the finales of seasons 5, 6, 7 and 8:
  • The first two came when the writers were almost sure the network would end the series, and both ended on cliffhangers that were intended to lead up to a follow-up theatrical movie, which in turn would set up the spinoff series Stargate Atlantis; both times, the series got renewed for a new season after all.
  • For season 7, the planned theatrical movie was reworked into a two-episode Grand Finale that would lead directly into Atlantis — but the series was renewed yet again, resulting in the finale's ending being rewritten so that Atlantis would be set in a different galaxy (to limit crossovers, as it was going to be contemporary with SG-1 rather than replacing it). Even then, the two-parter would've worked as a Series Finale, with Colonel O'Neill's Heroic Sacrfice (which left him alive but indefinitely incapacitated) resulting in the apparent death of the current Big Bad and the complete destruction of his fleet, along with giving Earth a weapon powerful enough to deter any invasion by the surviving villains.
  • Season 8 had a full-blown multi-part Grand Finale that ended with an epic battle, the defeat of every major antagonist in the series, and the resolution of 8 years worth of character threads and plotlines. In fact, it wrapped things up so completely that the next season necessitated a complete Retool of the show. Ironically, when the series was actually cancelled after season 10 the writers were expecting an extra year, so they weren't able to make a proper Grand Finale — instead, the series ended with most major storylines unresolved, and the planned arc for season 11 was reworked into a direct-to-DVD movie follow-up Stargate: The Ark of Truth.
• Supernatural:
  • The second season finale saw the Winchester brothers finally defeat the enemy they'd been pursuing since the first episode, as due to the series not quite yet being one of the iconic shows on the CW and renewal had yet to be confirmed, which is one reason that plotline was wrapped up so in case the show didn't return it at least would have an acceptable ending. Although there was a slight cliffhanger with Dean selling his soul and only having a year to live, it wasn't as in your face about it as most other cliffhangers, having more of a "just business as usual" feeling rather than a big Oh, Crap! moment like the others.
  • The fifth season is a pretty good example, even with the Sequel Hook at the very end. The story that had been building for the past 5 seasons had finally been resolved, the Big Bad was defeated, series creator Kripke stopped writing the show, and it could have all been over. Except it wasn't, it was only a third of the way through the series.
  • Season 11 builds up to a final confrontation between God himself and his older sister the Darkness, which ends with Dean talking them into discussing their issues instead of mutual destruction through the death of existence. God is meanwhile shown to have repaired his relationship with Lucifer while Sam and Dean have also put their own issues to rest. Then Sam is attacked and kidnapped, with the show going on for four more seasons.
• When Super Sentai suffered its lowest ratings with Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman to the point that it was facing cancellation, it was ultimately decided that Choujin Sentai Jetman (inspired by Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which was one of the major influences for the franchise itself) would be the final season. Jetman's finale ended with a bittersweet "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue taking place three years after the show in which Gai (now a businessman) gets stabbed by a mugger after saving a woman who got mugged by him and spending his last dying moments sitting on a bench, but on a happier note, Ryu and Kaori get married, Ako becomes an idol singer and Raita is now a farmer. The good response actually saved the show from being cancelled and the show has continued airing since then.
• Today's Special: The fifth-season episode "Live on Stage" was intended to be a Grand Finale for the series, where Jeff was finally able to join his friends outside the store, but then the series got Un-Canceled for another two seasons.
• Torchwood: Children of Earth, the third series of Torchwood was written with the possibility of it being the final series in mind, as the BBC seemed very unlikely to renew it for a fourth series, despite higher than ever viewership. So to make it conclusive, Ianto is Killed Off for Real, Torchwood as we know it is wiped from the records, and Jack leaves Earth forever, too plagued by the guilt of his grandson's murder to stay. Oh, and Gwen is pregnant. However, the series was picked up by Starz and BBC Worldwide, and a fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day was aired two years later.
• Season 5 of Veep ends with Selina leaving office without any chance of taking part in the new administration, while her staff all go their separate ways onto new things. However, by the time this episode aired, the series had already been renewed for a sixth season.
• Wheel of Fortune: Happened twice in the summer of 1980, as Fred Silverman was desperately trying to retool his daytime schedule to get rid of all game shows. The first time, a mock-up schedule scrubbed Wheel in favor of a 90-minute (and, some claim two hour) daytime talkfest hosted by David Letterman. Although Silverman was prepared to give Chuck Woolery time to say goodbye for the June 20, 1980 program, Wheel ultimately was spared, but almost wasn't as lucky later in the summer when Silverman ordered an hour-long version of Another World and a new soap opera called Texas. In this latter case, a finale was ordered for August 1, 1980, with host Chuck Woolery inviting then-wife Jo Ann Pflug onstage to thank the viewers for "5-1/2 wonderful years," and kissing both her and hostess Susan Stafford on the lips after Stafford said her farewells. The show was completed sometime in early July 1980 ... but then NBC decided instead to trim Letterman's struggling show to 60 minutes, meaning Wheel again was spared. That meant a hastily edited program airing on Friday, August 1, editing out Woolery's farewell speech (although an extended full-length closing credits was still shown); on the following Monday, Woolery laughedly explains why they were back so soon.
• The finales to seasons 1 and 3 of The Wire were written as potential series finales, wrapping up all existing plot threads and concluding with a distinct air of finality, because in both instances the creators didn't know whether the series would be renewed for additional seasons.
• Wizards of Waverly Place wrapped up nicely with an hour-long last episode in which Justin wins the Wizard Competition but decides to hand the baton to Alex. Then comes the second movie in 2013.
• The X-Files:
  • The first movie was meant to be the ending of the show, then Fox decided to hang onto their cash cow a while longer. The film's third act shows definite signs of being hastily rewritten to leave things open enough for the series to continue (Cigarette Smoking Man showing up in Antarctica and then leaving without actually doing anything being the most obvious).
  • Word of God says that "Requiem", the last episode of season seven, was written to serve as a series finale if they didn't get picked up again. Some X-Philes actually use it that way.