We had to say goodbye to Fear the Walking Dead, Star Trek: Picard and many other series this year. 8 series endings that kept us particularly busy in 2023
Series farewells often hurt. After fans had to say goodbye to sci-fi milestones and horror phenomena last year, 2023 also saw some emotional endings. Some series were allowed to retire on their own terms, while others were mercilessly canceled without a conclusion. Netflix was often to blame.
Series endings can inspire, reconcile, surprise or upset. We have compiled the 8 biggest series finales that thrilled us, moved us to tears or robbed us of years of our lives in 2023
Bad: 8 seasons of Fear the Walking Dead were 8 seasons too many
The Walking Dead ended last year after 11 seasons. The first spin-off also said goodbye in 2023 with season 8, with Fear the Walking Dead struggling to emerge from the original’s big shadow over the years. The final episodes were once again dedicated entirely to the character who started it all. After her apparent death in season 4, Madison Clark returned two bad seasons and one good season later for the finale, but the once complex and feared matriarch was barely recognizable.
Instead of finally letting the narrative worlds of both series collide with a final crossover, however, Fear took a very different path at the end. Even the reunion with daughter Alicia was no consolation for the incredibly stupid telenovela twists in the finale. In the end, I’m left with the feeling that I’ve wasted too many years of my life with this series, despite a few bright spots. (MW)
Good: We’ll be talking about the ending of the anime masterpiece Attack on Titan for a long time
Not even Walter White has undergone such a dramatic character development as Eren Jaeger in Attack on Titan. From a young hero who wanted to protect his walled homeland from ravenous Titans, he evolved into the destroyer of mankind. The complex anime hit with numerous twists and turns kept us guessing about Eren’s true motivations. The final answer is sure to keep anime fans in heated debate for many years to come.
The end of the Attack on Titan series was a meme even before its release. The broadcast of the “final” 4th season took almost three years (!). Nevertheless, it was worth the wait. An epic battle for the fate of humanity, fantastic action, tearful farewells and a bitter realization about the half-life of peace ended the series as it began: as a masterpiece. (MW)
Bad: An entire fantasy universe dies with the 2nd season of Shadow and Bone
Netflix cancels Shadow and Bone – Legends of the Grisha after season 2 and fans are completely baffled. And rightly so! Because by suddenly declaring the cliffhanger finale the end of the series, Netflix has given Shadow and Bone the most unfavorable ending imaginable. The fantasy series could have drawn a good line under the first book trilogy, which was filmed to completion in season 2.
Instead, the adventure leaves us hanging in the air with a final episode full of hints that not even fans of the novel can resolve. Even worse, the already written spin-off series Six of Crows, a true fan favorite of the fantasy series, will never be made. Netflix sawed off a series universe just before it reached its actual climax. (ES)
Good: Star Trek Picard reconciles sci-fi fans after 2 disappointments
When Star Trek: Picard launched in 2020, Trekkies’ expectations were higher than a fully formed Borg collective. For the first time since Nemesis, Enterprise captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) returned, but the story and the absence of some of The Next Generation characters disappointed many fans. And then season 3 gave us redemption for 20 episodes of average sci-fi.
Star Trek: Picard is finally allowed to be a real Star Trek series, which, between space excitement, processing decades-old conflicts and a nostalgic class reunion at the end, honors the legacy of its characters and sets an exciting course for an uncertain future. And anyone who doesn’t shed a tear when they return to the Enterprise-D isn’t a true Trekkie – or a carpet hater. (MW)
Bad: Your Honor should have ended after season 1
2020 surprised as Breaking Bad 2.0: The American remake of an Israeli series turned out to be a gripping thriller about a judge (Bryan Cranston) who finds himself in a moral quandary when his son (Hunter Doohan) commits a hit-and-run after an accident that results in his death. The man killed is the son of the local gangster boss.
The stark ending to the opening season of Your Honor would have been an ideal conclusion. Instead, the success of the mini-series led to a second season. But despite Bryan Cranston’s haunting acting, it got lost in criminal side-strands and drawn-out abysses of grief. The new 10 episodes came across as an unnecessarily broad epilogue. This unfortunately leaves Your Honor with a diminished impact. And with the knowledge that it would have been better to leave it at one season. (ES)
Good: Succession ends after 4 seasons as a masterpiece
In the end, Succession does the only right thing and doesn’t let anyone from the Roy clan win. Because this is the only way to make it clear to the last of us: the four seasons were never really about the question of who would win in the end, but about everything in between. The series ends at a point where it could simply go on. With new strategies, new alliances. The fact that this doesn’t feel completely anticlimatic in its ambiguity is definitive proof of how incredibly clever and human Succession is as a series.
Because something is different. The engine behind the vicious family circle is dead. Only now is there the prospect of a possible realization. Perhaps the siblings finally understand that their greatest failure to date is also their greatest victory: they will never be like their father. And ending right here is so much stronger, so much more special than ending with an empty victory in an anonymous meeting room. (LL)
Bad: The Blacklist says goodbye after 10 seasons with a catastrophic disappointment
I had abandoned The Blacklist after eight long years, hoping to return in the series finale and get answers. So this year, I was driven to see Raymond Reddington (James Spader) one last time. I had the naive hope that at the end of the 10th season, the series would finally answer the question it raised in the pilot episode: Who is Reddington and what is his relationship to Liz?
Unfortunately, the showrunners have not only completely thrown this central motif to the wind in the last two seasons. They also ended the series very abruptly. We don’t get a sensible ending for any character apart from Reddington or a prospect of how things will continue with the beloved characters after the finale. In the end, much of what has been painstakingly drawn out over 10 seasons fizzles out in the dusty winds of Spain. (AW)
Good: Ted Lasso hits the target again in the season 3 finale
For three seasons, Ted Lasso taught us that as a soccer coach you don’t need to know anything about soccer to bring good humor to a British sports team. Still an insider tip in this country, the comedy is the epitome of a successful feel-good series that knows how to score points with lovable characters, lots of humor and important messages. In season 3, Jason Sudeikis and his troupe unpack a few more surprising twists and teach us the benefits of charity and mindfulness towards ourselves.
As much as we would have loved to watch Ted Lasso at work for another 10 seasons on AppleTV+, the series understood that sometimes you have to leave when it’s at its best to have a well-rounded ending. Because a happy ending always includes a bit of melancholy and season 3 finds the perfect mix here in the finale. (ES)
