Rotten Tomatoes looks at 24 unresolved TV cliffhangers, ranging from poisoned presidents to adrift interstellar spaceships. We couldn’t possibly solve these mysteries. Can YOU?
THE X-FILES (1993-2002, 2016)
After stumbling through a lousy ninth season and a soppy 2008 movie, X-Files lifers Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were resurrected in 2016 for a six-episode event series exploring the 21st century’s unique exhaustive paranoia. Wildly divergent in tone and quality, season 10 turned over every major touchstone that has defined the series: “mytharc” aliens, the Mul/Scull romance, monsters-of-the-week, and left-field comedy. Creator Chris Carter, long past caring about anything as small as audience satisfaction, delivers a possible series-ending double whammy of Mulder succumbing to a virus as a UFO descends upon him and Scully.
TWIN PEAKS (1990-1991) With the murder of Laura Palmer resolved by mid-second season (a studio decision), Twin Peaks‘ characters were free to move on with their lives. Our man Dale Cooper stuck around town, only to reveal in the show’s final seconds that he was possessed by the very demon he had vanquished. David Lynch’s follow-up prequel movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, gave few hints to Coop’s ultimate fate. (Until the long-awaited sequel series premiering next year.)
CARNIVALE (2004-06) Carnivale was a slow-burn, esoteric drama of biblical proportions, the battle of good-and-evil distilled between a healing carny (Nick Stahl) and a mind-controlling preacher (Clancy Brown). The nature of these characters’ powers and narrative drive only came slowly into focus during the show’s two seasons, ending in an apocalyptic showdown that left both characters’ fate open. Creator Daniel Knauff had a six-year plan for Carnivale and season 3 would’ve jumped ahead by several years (somewhat assuaging this cliffhanger), but the show’s high production cost and purposefully difficult storytelling has it left behind in the Dust Bowl.
THE SOPRANOS (1999-2007) Does Tony Soprano live or does he die? Does it even matter? One of life’s little mysteries better left unsolved by The Sopranos.
LOIS & CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1993-1997) She’s having a baby…we think? Lois Lane and Clark Kent get hitched and then comes the series cliffhanger: a mysterious toddler discovered in Superman’s Krypton-authentic bassinet. The baby angle is likely an homage to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, the brilliant two-issue finale for the original Superman comic book, with the concept revisited in Superman Returns.
MY NAME IS EARL (2005-2009) Petty crook and all-around crumbum Earl wants to reverse his karma. He’s made a list of the bad deeds he’s committed and every episode he’s setting those wrongs right. NBC assured show creator Greg Garcia he’d be safe to put “To Be Continued” at the end of season 4. It wasn’t safe, and so we never learn if Earl completes the list, or what became of the many love affairs of Crabman.
STARGATE UNIVERSE (2009-2011) Aboard an empty alien ship, travelling faster than light, the Stargate crew put themselves into cryogenic sleep for years. Whiz kid Eli remains awake, having volunteered to fix the remaining broken sleep pod. Eli has two weeks of oxygen, but the pod is made from alien technology and IKEA forgot the instructions. The series ends with Eli peacefully observing the passing universe.
MOESHA (1996-2001) Moesha was new and on-air for more than half of UPN’s life, representing the network’s foundation of contemporary issues and urban comedy. Thus, audiences who had journeyed with Brandy as the title character from her Leimert Park origins to early college life had every reason to expect resolution to the season 6 cliffhanger, featuring a discarded positive pregnancy test in Moesha’s dorm room, and her little brother’s kidnapping by a rival recording artist. UPN cancelled the show due to faltering ratings and when network promises to resolve the story on spin-off The Parkers failed to materialize, Brandy apologized for the fan treatment in 2014.
SOUTHLAND (2009-13)
A no holds barred look at beat cops keeping L.A. County safe, Southland was cancelled after its first 2009 season on NBC before getting picked up by TNT for four additional seasons always on the verge of cancellation. This only emboldened the creators to push the envelope further every time, culminating in a season 5 cliffhanger where main LEO characters see bad unresolved endings: Ben abuses his power to resolve family issues and gets labelled a dirty cop, while unhinged John assaults a neighbor and is shot by the police, leaving him to bleed out (???) as the show fades to black.
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (2008-2009) Terminator is a series that likes to noodle with its own timeline, and Chronicles did the noodliest: Clinton-era John Connor is tossed into the future before his chance to lead the rebellion against Skynet. In this future, the robots have won and not even Kyle Reese recognizes him. A crestfallen John sighs: “Only ’90s kids will get this.”
LOST (2004-2010) Where did Walt’s powers come from? What was the smoke monster, really? What was outside the church? J.J. Abrams’ LOST was essentially one big unsolved mystery, and though the internet is flush with theories to this day — some more plausible than others — most folks were content to simply enjoy the ride.
ALCATRAZ (2012)
FOX’s mid-season show debuted with one majorly high concept: that 300 Alcatraz inmates and staff who disappeared in 1963 are now showing up unaged in modern-day San Francisco. Maybe it was too soon after Prison Break ending, and maybe audiences just weren’t ready for another possible J.J. Abrams multiverse-in-a-show dealie, but this sci-fi prison show didn’t light TV audience imaginations in 2012. By the end of its 13-episode run, emergences were no longer just confined to the Bay Area city and the main character was killed off to audience shrugs; the migration to cable TV was already well under way at this point.
V (1984-1985) A peace accord between the humans and alien-race Visitors is approaching, but obstinate antagonist Diana has planted a bomb on one of the friendly ships. Its detonation will jeopardize everything. The show ends there and the 2009 remake didn’t continue the storyline.
NOWHERE MAN (1995) Bruce Greenwood stars as a photojournalist with an incendiary photo: four U.S. soldiers hung from a tree in South America. Things instantly go sour for Greenwood: nobody recognizes him (not even his wife), his best friend ends up dead, and shadowy men are in hot pursuit. At the end of this single-season paranoid thriller, Greenwood uncovers a vast FBI conspiracy, and that he himself is an agent “undercover,” his previous family life an implanted memory.
FLASHFORWARD (2009-2010) Everyone on Earth has a sudden vision of themselves six months into the future. What caused this premonition phenomenon? And are we tied to our fates? An intriguing premise for this one-season show, which overburdened itself with sci-fi conspiracy baggage. The story concludes with nothing resolved, and another vision: this time 21 years into the future, where presumably FlashForward is starting its 22nd season.
ANGEL (1999-2004)
For a spinoff of a show that was a TV spinoff to a movie about a high schooler slaying vampires, Angel did pretty well for itself. It lasted five seasons and formally launched the career of David Boreanaz as a vampire working through his human guilt by playing detective to occult problems around Los Angeles. Creator Joss Whedon says though its season 5 cancellation was unexpected — ending with Angel rallying his surviving friends after an already bloody episode — it fits with the show as it demonstrates the good fight is an eternal struggle. So thematically, the cliffhanger works. Emotionally, it sucks.
SOAP (1977-81) Soap, a primetime parody of soap operas that ran during the late 1970s, captured America’s loosening morals regarding sex, social class, and, um, exorcisms — all in a winking meta-package of insane serialized plots. So it’s no surprise the show ended with a bevy of loose ends, like a dad catching his wife and son in bed, and the main character facing execution by a communist firing squad.
24 (2001-2010) In the final moments of 24‘s season 2, U.S. President Palmer greets the public and is rendered unconscious by a handshake-transmitted virus. The assailant, Mandy, was a minor character in the first season, making her last-second appearance a real callback twist. Who is Mandy working for? And why? And why not kill the President instead of just making him real light-headed? All this and more…not explained in season 3!
DUCKMAN (1994-1997) You get a wedding! You get a wedding! Everyone gets a wedding! Four pairs of characters get hitched in the season 4 finale (Duckman included), but the big shock comes with the apparent resurrection of Beatrice, Duckman’s long-dead wife and virtually his sole source of viewer sympathy. Quoth writer Michael Markowitz: “We never formally planned Part II… and I’ll never tell what I personally had in mind.” …Translation: “WHAT THE THE HELL ARE YOU STARIN’ AT?!”
EXOSQUAD (1993-1994) Exosquad was a real solid example of a western Robotech, a serious cartoon of space mechs and intricate characters playing across one continuous story. The show’s main plotline (humans defending against the rebellion of their genetically-created slaves) resolved after two seasons. The show was then cancelled, but not before a single season 3 episode was aired, introducing a huge new alien threat.
SLEDGE HAMMER! (1986-1988) The Sledge Hammer! writers figured they weren’t getting renewed so they ended the season with the titular police nutjob blowing the city to kingdom come with a nuke. To the writers’ misfortune, Hammer was renewed, so they weaseled out by setting the second season five years prior to the first. Ultimately meaning that Sledge Hammer! vs. C.H.U.D. remains an unrealized dream. Get on this, prospective future millionaire!
DRIVE (2007) Another short-lived Nathan Fillion Fox show, Drive revolves around a nationwide underground race, with differing motives for each contestant. Co-star Emma Stone, for example, is dragged into the race by her father/race partner, who then reveals he’s dying from terminal illness. Only four episodes of Drive were aired, so the perpetrators of the race and their overall purpose have slipped beyond vanishing point.
DEADWOOD (2004-06)
Look, Deadwood, South Dakota isn’t a place nice people go to feel good about themselves. It’s a rising township deep in the brutal American frontier, where some of the Wild West’s most prominent legends made their name through violence, shady dealings, and ruthlessness. So season 3’s shocking finale, in which the main characters (of varying innocence) slice up an innocent woman to use as a body double, certainly upholds the show’s stance of redemption as an impossible luxury. A fourth season was obviously planned, but audiences will only have the abrupt downer ending to ride off into the sunset.
