10 Insane TV Finales NOBODY Saw Coming
8. It Was An Autistic Kid's Dream - St. Elsewhere
There's perhaps no single more infamously bonkers series finale in TV history than the utterly unhinged climax to medical drama show St. Elsewhere, which offered up a strange take on the now-tired "it was all a dream!" ending.
The show's final scene heavily implies that the entire series was actually imagined by Dr. Donald Westphall's (Ed Flanders) autistic son Tommy (Chad Allen), as a model replica of St. Eligius Hospital is shown contained within the snow globe Tommy is playing with.
It's an ending so howlingly unexpected that it's well-known even among those who've not seen a single episode of the series, epitomising TV shows which, for better or worse, do something totally ridiculous completely out of nowhere right at the finish line.
Curiously though, the ending hasn't really tainted the show's solid reputation at all, but arguably actually enhanced it, ensuring that St. Elsewhere is still firmly remembered more than 35 years after it wrapped up.