10 Insane TV Finales NOBODY Saw Coming
6. It Was Dr. Hartley's Dream - Newhart
A rare instance of "it was all a dream" that didn't feel like a flaming copout now, with the legendary '80s sitcom Newhart.
The final scene in the series finale, "The Last Newhart," shifts to the bedroom of Dr. Bob Hartley - the character played by Bob Newhart in his previous '70s sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show.
Hartley wakes up and tells his wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) about a vivid dream where he was an innkeeper in a small Vermont town, effectively recounting the plot of Newhart.
Indeed, it turns out the entirety of Newhart was simply a dream of Dr. Hartley's. It's a twist that could've easily bombed in lesser hands, yet the delivery is so pitch-perfect, and back in the simpler times of 1990 such reveals hadn't yet become tired cliches.
It's incredibly difficult not to make such an ending feel cheap or manipulative, but in the case of Newhart it simply ensured it ended on a gut-busting - if staggeringly unpredictable - final punchline.