12 Sci-Fi TV Shows Let Down By Terrible Endings

Blessed with a genius premise (“physicist Dr Sam Beckett comes unstuck in time, can bounce between bodies within his lifetime in order to help the lives of others—but can’t control this ability”), Quantum Leap was a long-running sci-fi show which touched on almost every other TV genre across its illustrious run and mostly did so with grace and panache.

Until its infamous final instalment, that is. In the surreal episode Mirror Image, our hero arrived at a town inhabited by characters he had encountered during earlier trips through time. After the protagonist saves a set of miners from a collapse, he’s informed by an enigmatic barman that these miners were all fellow time travelling body hoppers and the whole trippy ordeal has been a test. With that bombshell out of the way, the barman informs our nominal hero that he is actually able to control his leaps, and will be able to go home any time he wants.

Pretty perfect closer, right?

Sure—if it weren’t for the cut-to-black last shot, whose epigraph inexplicably and devastatingly reads “Dr Sam Beckett never returned home.”