It’s become common to praise the current slate of TV as the golden age of television, but despite how far the medium has come there are still certain areas that can be a struggle. Endings are never easy, especially when a series has built a sterling reputation for itself over the years. Even the most fulfilling of conclusions can inevitably split audiences and it’s exceedingly difficult to create a conclusion that can feel authentic while also pleasing as many fans as possible.
There are plenty of acclaimed television series that experience consistent runs, only to fumble the narrative when they approach the finish line. However, TV shows aren’t destined to end on a sour note and there are incredible series that don’t just end in a satisfying manner, but are also able to deliver their strongest episodes during their concluding year.
10 The Leftovers Doesn’t Mature Into A Modern Masterpiece Until Its Final Season
Damon Lindelof is a talented, albeit controversial name in the television industry. Not everyone respects the manner in which Lost’s story evolved and concluded, but Lindelof’s subsequent projects exhibit considerably more restraint. The Leftovers left many audiences cold during its first season, with a second year that successfully developed its bleak world.
Season three of The Leftovers is in a class all on its own. It takes all of the show’s disparate themes and ties them together in a bewildering, inspiring manner. The Leftovers' final season is a true magic trick of storytelling and its series finale is still the subject of engrossing debates.
9 The Final Season Of The Shield Is A Slow Burn Into Darkness
The Shield ran for seven brutal seasons on FX and helped put the cable network on the map due to its unflinching look at the constant corruption that consumes the police department. Vic Mackey's descent into irredeemability becomes more suffocating with each season, but The Shield's final year doesn't hold back. It focuses on the aftermath of Mackey's unconventional police work. The Shield’s most mature and emotional storytelling is reserved for its final season, but these concluding episodes excel because of the devastating note that the series ends on. Many subsequent prestige dramas owe a lot to its series finale.
8 Breaking Bad’s Last Season Is A Chemical Combustion Like Nothing Else
Breaking Bad deserves infinite respect for not dragging out its story and ending on its own terms without forcing the audience’s disbelief to get suspended too far. Each season of Breaking Bad raises the stakes in stressful ways and once the chaos starts, it's never given a chance to slow down.
Breaking Bad’s final season, which was split into two halves, delivers the satisfying payoff that audiences have been hungry for since the show’s start. Walter White is forced to truly reckon with his actions and hubris, with devastating results.
7 The Americans’ Riveting Spy Game Of Deception Ends On Top
The Americans doesn't just conclude with its strongest season in its sixth and final year, but is one of the most consistent dramas of the past decade. Any series like The Americans that centers around a huge secret faces difficulty when that truth finally comes to light. The Americans allows its storylines to beautifully come together in its final season, yet it still delivers a finale that's both surprising and satisfying. The Americans is largely anchored by the impeccable performances by its leads, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, both of which are at their best in the final season.
6 Cheers Leaves The Audience Wanting More After It Goes Out On Top
It’s difficult for the final season of any show to stand out as its strongest, but this is a prospect that’s almost impossible when the series has been on for more than a decade. Nevertheless, Cheers remains such a sitcom masterpiece because its 11th and final season is still as hilarious and moving as anything that’s come before it. Cheers successfully survives through casting changes and other pivots, but it never loses its heart. Cheers’ final season isn’t just exceptional, but is still regarded as a triumph of television.
5 BoJack Horseman Asks Its Deepest And Most Important Questions In Its Final Season
BoJack Horseman is one of the past decade’s finest pieces of television, animated or otherwise. The raw, honest series initially disarms its audience with a world full of humorous anthropomorphic animals, but hidden inside is a brutal series about fear, addiction, depression, and the toxic nature of fame.
By the time that BoJack Horseman’s sixth and final season rolls around, there’s legitimate anxiety over how the show will end and if the fragile BoJack will be left standing. BoJack’s final episodes are a satisfying, stunning assessment of how much the egotistical character has grown and if he’s someone who actually deserves a happy ending.
4 Season Five Of Angel Puts Its Heroes In The Belly Of The Beast And Strikes Gold
To many, Joss Whedon’s Angel is undeservedly dismissed as just Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s darker and moodier spin-off. Angel’s third and fourth seasons are meticulously serialized and occasionally get lost in the woods as a result. Angel's fifth and final season slightly course-corrects with an approach that’s initially more episodic, but truly shines. It puts Angel and company in charge of Wolfram & Hart, who have fulfilled the role of the series’ antagonists since the start. Angel’s fifth season also brings Buffy’s Spike into the picture and isn’t afraid to tear down the house as it heads into its concluding episodes.
3 Halt And Catch Fire’s Final Season Matures And Asks Deep, Rewarding Questions
Halt and Catch Fire tells a tight story over the course of four seasons that's set within the growing computer boom experienced in the 1980s, and eventually sets its sights on the chaotic start of the Internet's development in the early '90s.
Halt and Catch Fire creates such believable and passionate characters that propel its storytelling forward, but the final season takes its biggest risks. It's so fortunate that Halt and Catch Fire was able to properly conclude its story and that the final season functions as such a sophisticated and emotional goodbye to its world.
2 Person Of Interest’s Procedural Crime-Fighting Culminates Into A Sci-Fi Dystopia
Coming from Jonathan Nolan who has since given HBO one of their most polarizing and addictive series with Westworld, his network procedural drama, Person Of Interest, is a deeply more impressive and reliable piece of television. Person of Interest takes some time to properly reveal what it's truly all about, and slowly evolves from a cryptic series about using technology to help those in need, to an incredibly prescient drama about overpowered artificial intelligence. This development happens so naturally and the sci-fi angle that's fully embraced by Person of Interest's final season represents the series at its best.
1 Fringe Heads Into The Apocalypse For Its Final Year
There have been endless X-Files clones that have merged procedural dramas with supernatural storytelling, but none of them can compare to Fringe. Fringe continually pushes the envelope and doesn't cheat its audience with the dramatic pivots that transform each season of the series. Fringe's fifth and final season is easily its most ambitious, but makes for the perfect conclusion to the fearless sci-fi series. Fringe's final season turns the clock forward more than two decades to the year 2036, where the world has become a police state dystopia and the series' heroes have never been more helpless and destabilized.