TV series that were cancelled and ended with a cliffhanger

Agent Carter
Twin Peaks (until it was uncancelled)

Any other examples like this? The Agent Carter one really bugged me, because it was the best of the Marvel TV series and deserved better. Twin Peaks, not so much, because the quality had already dropped, and the cliffhanger sort of works as a proper, albeit extremely grim ending. (I haven't watched the new TP series, so I don't know how they followed up on it.)

alf

Rubicon
Terriers (sorta)
The most annoying one might have been The Fades.

1978-81 cynical space revolution series Blake's 7 -

(created by Dalek copyright holder Terry Nation, mostly written by regular 1977 Dr Who writer Chris Boucher, and produced by 8-time 1968-77 Who director David Maloney)

- ended its second series with the apparent death of the title character.

When ratings subsequently slipped during the third, Boucher & Maloney saw the writing on the wall. They devised a resolution to the ongoing set-up of the show, and brought Nation back to write a final episode, entitled Finale.

The Head of TV at the BBC happened to tune in to the episode at home, thought it was rather good, and phoned the on-air presentation department to tell them to announce a fourth series in voice-over while the credits rolled.

Having re-established a new set-up and some new characters throughout the fourth series, and built a relationship with a new producer (Maloney having taken another job when he thought the series was cancelled), Boucher went out on a massive cliffhanger where it turned out Blake was alive, the ragtag group of ex-con space mercs teamed up with him again, the self-interested untrustworthy second lead Avon is told Blake may have betrayed them, Avon goes "ah fuck it" and shoots Blake dead, LOADS OF SPACE FEDERALES BURST IN AND SHOOT THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYONE, then the credits roll over gun sounds so we don't know who's dead or not.

There was not a fifth series.

Loads of these listed here:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/most-frustrating-tv-shows-canceled-on-a-cliffhanger-5642207

Last Man on Earth

I never thought of Twin Peaks as being a cliffhanger to be honest, more of a Lynchian unknowable (let's face it, there was more chance of explaining Josie in the knob than Booper being resolved in a more satisfactory way than TP:R).

(xpost to Tuomas - trying to explain The Return won't do it justice, just watch it. If you're not on board with {redacted character} being portrayed as a {redated} who talks in {redacted} then it's probably not for you.)

The British example that sticks out in my head is Sapphire & Steel, stuck in a time trap service station since 1982. Is Silver still with them? Was he part of the trap?

Moesha

i was broadly aware of the backroom drama but having watched Blake's 7 religiously at first time of broadcast i felt like the ending of every series was pretty much in keeping with the vibe of the rest of the show

I never thought of Twin Peaks as being a cliffhanger to be honest, more of a Lynchian unknowable (let's face it, there was more chance of explaining Josie in the knob than Booper being resolved in a more satisfactory way than TP:R).

Declining viewing made cancellation likely but Mark Frost has admitted they hoped a cliffhanger might have made a renewal possible so it was written that way BUT iirc cancellation was announced 8 weeks before the end, plus there was a broadcast delay of a few weeks so it's entirely credible Lynch tinkered with it again before screening.

But my point is that it doesn't actually feel like a cliffhanger, or if it is then it's in the same way as 'who killed Laura Palmer' being a realistic question.

An ending where the show's primary antagonist is revealed to possess the body of its protagonist doesn't feel like a cliffhanger to you? How much more cliffhangery can you get?

yeah, Lynch is all about narrative closure

deems, have I got a twenty-year-old tv movie surprise for you.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/da/Project_Alf_DVD.jpg

The most recent example of this phenomenon (which I know no one else here cares about but still) is the goddamn OA. And what a cliffhanger it was.

good one. I like the theory that the cancellation is the real-life extension of the show, or whatever. we'll see.

I remember this being true of My So Called Life, but can't remember how much of a cliffhanger it really was.

It was an emotional cliffhanger. I mean, less so in hindsight inasmuch as both of her potential paramours were kinda schmucks but still.

Sledge Hammer had a nice twist on this, they expected to get cancelled after Season 1 so in the season finale they had the title character accidentally explode a nuclear bomb and blow up the entire city

they wound up actually getting brought back so Season 2 was "Sledge Hammer: The Early Years" which made no sense whatsoever

I now think we will be done a disservice if Tuomas doesn't liveblog watching The Return.

Freaks and Geeks
My Name Is Earl
Crime Story

Hannibal, though you could argue it was a deliberate choice to end on a cliffhanger.

Does Soap count? I always thought they could bring it back and it would be discovered that Jessica and Bert had somehow survived, in a Saturday mornign serial fashion. It was actually all pretty unnerving looking back.

Hannibal, though you could argue it was a deliberate choice to end on a cliffhanger.

― Roz, Tuesday, August 27, 2019 9:32 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it was also a literal cliffhanger

Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom/Riget, though it wasn't "cancelled" in the usual way by the big bad studios, but rather the death of a main actor.

i've always seen blake's 7 as a classic "bolivian army ending" myself...

Re: Twin Peaks

I can't find a source for this right now, but I'm pretty sure people involved in the series have said the season 2 finale was made under the assumption that there would be a third season, so it was supposed to be a cliffhanger.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, August 27, 2019 12:39 PM (three hours ago)

I'm pretty sure Tuomas is right about how it was *supposed* to happen, but I've always been on Team It's A Perfectly Good Ending, Actually.

Despite my worst fears, I ended up liking Season 3 a whole lot, but one of the things I did not like was the fact that it pretty much erased an entire character... one who is specifically mentioned in the cliffhanger ending of Season 2...

xpost

sure, the thread title wasn’t “TV series that were cancelled and ended on a cliffhanger that was really shitty and not in keeping with the tone of the programme overall” tho

speaking of, Lynch kept one of the cliffhanger elements of Twin Peaks up for all 18 hours of The Return, with one character’s S2 finale fate remaining ambiguous despite their appearing in many episodes of the sequel.

ha, Annie isn’t in Lynch’s headcanon.

I mean he did put her in the movie...

speaking of Soap, a Benson episode had Jessica show up in a vision and said that she survived but was in a coma

“and then Annie returned to her home planet”

Annie’s bit in the film is the best Annie scene

In the return frank asks hawk who Annie is and hawk’s like “a girl who went into that place” which is otm

hawk always otm

It definitely wasn't about the bunny.

its the eek-anomie, stupid