12 Sci-Fi TV Shows Let Down By Terrible Endings

At least Lost didn't end with a furry friend being kidnapped by the feds...

By Cathal Gunning /

What is it about sci-fi in particular that makes it either great or terrible fodder for TV, with little room in between the two extremes? Maybe it’s the fact that the television series format is perfect for slow burn mysteries and sci-fi is a genre which requires plenty of exposition and world building in order to build stakes and develop believable characters. Maybe it’s the fact that the limited budgets of TV mean sci-fi is more likely to end up looking laughable on the small screen than in the multiplex.

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Whatever the cause, as often as sci-fi series delight genre fans with treats like Star Trek, The X-Files, or Stranger Things, there are countless well-intentioned creators whose sci-fi series end up disastrous flops. And more often than not, an embarrassing ending is central to the failure of a show.

Sure, some of these series were already pretty middle of the road before their ignominious finales rolled around. But some of them were genuine classics and no one wanted the grand revelations of their final episode to leave viewers let down by the hours they committed to them. In any case, here are set of a dozen sci-fi shows which unfortunately fell short when it came time for their denouement.

12. Invasion

Debuting in 2005, Invasion may have been plagued by some of the worst timing in television production history. The show, the first of many hoping to replicate the success of Lost which debuted a year earlier, concerned the titular invasion by unseen aliens during a catastrophic storm off the coast of Florida.

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The problem was 2005 played host to Hurricane Katrina, a very real tragedy which left Americans none too eager to follow a fictional national disaster. As a result, the series which had originally been intended to run for five seasons was cut down to a single season, twenty two episode run.

As a result the cause of the eponymous invasion and the many mysteries of the aliens it harboured, hinted at throughout the short run, remained unexplained. What could have been an enigmatic cliff hanger became the show’s official ending and frustrated fans turned to unsuccessful petitions in order to learn what it all meant.

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