10 Great TV Cliffhangers (With Awful Pay-Offs)
1. How I Met Your Mother - "Something New"
After 184 episodes fans of How I Met Your Mother, fans finally got the reveal they'd been waiting eight years for, as the mother was officially revealed at the very end of Something New, the season eight finale.
Fans were left with the tantalizing prospect that Ted would finally meet the mother of his children at Barney and Robin's wedding. Naturally, people were excited to see how they'd meet.
What fans didn't expect was a ninth season that stretches out a single weekend over the course of 24 episodes. In the end, the final season was disappointing overall, although a few standout episodes do rank among the best of the series.
Unfortunately, the finale, for many, isn't one of them, as it controversially killed off the Mother so that Ted could get back together with Robin.
How could they possibly kill off the character the show had been working towards introducing for eight years? Outrage followed, and an alternative ending was made to redeem the godawful original ending. It's undoubtedly the worst cliffhanger pay-off in TV history.