10 Most Hated TV Finales Of All Time
8. Roseanne - ‘Into That Good Night’
It’s easy to forget what a phenomenon Roseanne was three decades ago. The Friends or Big Bang Theory of its day, it was one of the most popular, enduring TV shows in America.
However, with ratings falling, it was decided to shake up the format for season nine, turning a grounded sitcom about blue collar life into a weird-ass fantasy. The Connors won $108million in the lottery. There were themed episodes taking in Evita, Steven Seagal movies, Jerry Springer and Xena. Roseanne entered a beauty contest, Jackie dated a prince - it was as if Roseanne the writer/producer had shoehorned as much wackiness as possible into Roseanne the show before it was cancelled.
In the final ten minutes, it was revealed that that all of that malarkey had been a fiction… as was the entire nine-season run of the show. The whole thing had been Roseanne’s attempt to construct a better, clearer life for herself: swapping around her daughters’ chosen partners, making her mother gay instead of her sister, and writing her deceased husband back into her life.
It was a slap in the face for the audience, conned into investing their time and emotion into these characters, none of whom were who they were supposed to be. Twenty years later, many are still bitterly disappointed.