10 TV Shows That Failed Spectacularly In Their Final Season
9. Scrubs
Scrubs is the example of a hit TV show that found a perfect place to stop, delivered a killer finale, and then... kept going for another season.
The eighth season's final episode was for all intents and purposes written as a series finale by creator Bill Lawrence, who genuinely believed it would be the final episode.
But shortly after the season concluded, ABC announced that Scrubs had been renewed for a ninth season, no matter that season eight had effectively said a fond farewell to the central characters.
And so, season nine shifted to focus on a new roster of medical students, with the only cast members to return for every episode being Donald Faison and John C. McGinley, while Zach Braff appeared in just six of the season's 13 episodes.
Needless to say, the magic was largely gone - Scrubs felt like it had its last word at the end of season eight, and this was simply a lackluster epilogue with a new cast who, despite their efforts, lacked the charms of the original lot.
Perhaps the fan response would've been less vitriolic if ABC agreed to Lawrence's request to call season nine "Scrubs Med" instead, but as part of the show's linear mainline chronology, it's a damp squib of a post-script nobody was really asking for.