7 TV Shows With Near-Perfect Endings

If you were to ask when the series 24 should have ended, it would be understandable for someone to say it should have concluded very early on in its ten-year run.

But the show had a perfect ending in sight, and while season eight did contain the incredible "That's Jack Bauer!" motorcade attack, the perfect ending was back in season seven.

After contracting a disease from an experimental nerve agent, Jack Bauer's hours were numbered and as the season drew to a close with the bad guys arrested and the good guys toasting a bittersweet victory, Jack Bauer was left lying in a hospital bed waiting to die.

Throughout the seventh season, the question of Jack's morals in relation to torture are extensively brought up, with characters asking if the ends justify the means and if Jack could ever be forgiven for the acts he has committed for the "greater good". After making peace with an Emir (a fitting symbol given 24's choice of antagonists) and coming to terms with who he is, Jack closes his eyes and says he is ready to pass away.

The carpet is pulled from under us when Jack's daughter Kim marches into the hospital and demands to donate her bone marrow to save her father's life. What would have been a very peaceful and satisfying ending, gets derailed with a lazy last-minute twist, and 24 continued two more Jack-filled seasons that just never lived up to the seasons that took place before it.