Toy Story 3.
EDIT: And to elaborate, the movie showed a conclusion to a longer narrative thread of Andy growing up and his toys needing a new home. There was a satisfying ending.
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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Well with an ending like this they didnβt really leave anywhere to go.
I watched it with a guy on my floor in college. First time for both of us. He was told before that that was the ending so we were both tearing up and he thought it was about to roll credits.
Terminator 2 (T2) is a masterclass in combining CGI with practical effect and its ending is a rare cinematic full stop.
The T-1000βs liquid metal form was revolutionary, the morphing effects were cutting-edge in 1991, yet Cameron used them sparingly and only where practical effects couldnβt work. That restraint made the CGI more impactful and has made it so they still hold up 35 years later.
The truck chase through the storm drain, the helicopter flying under an overpass, the Cyberdyne building blowing up; it was all real and you can feel that when you watch the movie. There is no way any movie studio would do that nowadays when they could just CGI giant Michael Bay explosions.
The destruction of Cyberdyne and the Terminators meant the timeline was reset. Judgment Day was averted. The T-800 lowering itself into molten steel is an iconic moment; a machine choosing self-sacrifice for humanity. Itβs a perfect final note, not just for the character, but for the franchise. Bringing him back again and again weakens that sacrifice. Any sequel has to undo all of this just to exist. Which is why to this day, I have not watched a single Terminator film after T2.
Which is why to this day, I have not watched a single Terminator film after T2.
I don't want to spoil anything, but you might be interested in knowing that some of us feel that Terminator: Dark Fate avoids the issues you mention, and works as a direct and worthy sequel to T2.
FWIW, I actually enjoyed T3 and what it did with the timeline. Not saying it's a better movie, or it was necessary, but still I liked it well enough.
Basically, the arm and chip Dyson used to advance science merely accelerated judgement day. It was coming regardless. Destroying them just pushed judgment day back to its original date.
I kinda like that, cuz otherwise it's a bootstrap paradox where skynet sent back the technology that was used to create skynet.
spoiler
The end of the episode loops seamlessly into the pilot. When I first watched it live they played both episodes back to back without an ad break. It took me a few minutes to realize what they had done and I started crying.
It's a perfect loop, a perfect end to Fry and Leela's relationship, and bittersweet in its existential implications
The "new" episodes they released afterwards don't count. I acknowledge that they exist but I do not grant them the title of canon.
I feel compelled to say Scrubs s08e19, which is weird because they only ever made eight seasons of Scrubs.
JD walks down the corridor to Peter Gabriel singing The Book of Love while I'm weeping like a baby.
And that's that. There was no more Scrubs.
Now, if you decide you want to see more of the gang and their shenanigans, there is a single season of a spin-off show called βScrubs: Med School.β Itβs okay. Not great. Itβs certainly not Scrubs though.
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The Office when Michael moved away. It was never the same after that.
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Last episode of The Simpsons Season 9
new season has been goood
In my own opinion, it's Disney good.
Early Simpsons was slightly edgy, not in a shock factor way, but in a way where it could explore mature themes without any tonal whiplash, while still being entertaining for kids and adults.
As Fox deteriorated, so did the Simpsons, presumably from bad producing and low funding. Pretty much as soon as the Disney acquisition happened, quality began to climb again, and people have been saying it's good for a few years.
But I can't shake the feeling that the real feeling isn't that it's good, just that it isn't bad anymore. It's as inoffensive and bland as many Disney IPs, but doesn't carry the true badness of Fox. I don't trust that Disney is able to give it the ingredients for it to be great again.
It did get disney cutsified the last season, but the last few episodes have been making GTA SA PS2 gangsta references (and surprisingly not cringe!) and has been doing the joke layering that the Conan O'Brien era was famous for.
It's not just setup -> punchline any more, the last few episodes have been doing setup -> small punchline -> setup -> bigger punchline -> setup for later punchline all in the same scene.
And they're not screw-the-audience jokes or random references (though there are some), it's all in-universe humour. Check out the last episode, it was genuinely well-written and laugh-out-loud funny
The Matrix
Aliens ended the franchise. Slightly different answer, nothing occurred between the release of Predator and Prey.
Episode 25 of Death Note would have been a dark, but logical place to end the series. After that point the entire dynamic of the show changes. There are some good and interesting moments, but it doesn't really feel like the same show.
Season 5 of Supernatural was the logical endpoint
Rocky ended at Rocky. Even Rocky 2, the second best movie if you're judging its qualities with the same ruler Rocky's measured, feels off compared to the original. Rocky is a love story/character study with a little bit of boxing at the beginning and at the end, whilst the rest are boxing movies primarily/solely.
Also, while everyone knows Terminator ended with T2, did you know Kung Fu Panda also ended with KFP2? π
Rocky is so all over the place. You make great points and I donβt disagree. Another metric is how watchable they are and by that standard you could argue it makes it up to and including Rocky IV. I donβt even know what to do with the newer ones.
The Office when Michael left.
Terminator 3 is the last of that series in my eyes. The others - although not too shabby (excluding Salvation of course) - I regard as fan fiction.
Arrested Development - that last season just did not agree with me.
Community - things dropped off quickly when Troy left.
Season 1 of Westworld. Itβs okay to have an ambiguous ending, you can leave it to viewerβs imagination. That show went downhill with every season because it was trying too hard to be smart.
Agree.
Saw S2 but the magic was just not there. Never saw anything after.
Endgame is the end of the MCU. After endgame disney pished out too much MCU shit and ruined it. They shouldβve stopped at endgame and not try to make many shows that also factor into the overall MCU. Some may argue that this problem was already too much before endgame premiered. That is a valid argument.
I know your question is worded for movies and shows but I have one example from the world of video games that still makes me sad. Final Fantasy died shortly after X, maybe X-2. XII if you really want to stretch things. After that, they were too focused on "modernizing" gameplay. I just want something with a colorful world, quirky characters and turn-based combat that's more about finding the right strategy for a boss than reflexes.
I guess XIV is nice in its own way but as an MMORPG I see it more as a spin-off than as a part of the main series. The VII remakes tickle some nostalgia neurons but would have been better without their real-time combat. XIII, XV and XVI were just meh. If you really want to make me happy, make a faithful remake of VIII with modern graphics, rebalanced but otherwise faithful gameplay and a few more scenes in the last act that answer a few questions that the community has been trying to answer for 25 years.
If we're including video games im gonna say mass effect. I didn't give 2 enough of a chance because at the end of ME1 the entire known universe bands together to defeat a single big-bad ship and it's a fully annihilating battle where the good guys barely scrape by. Then thousands of the big-bads turn up at once and the credits roll. Its a devastating ending that really drives home the central themes.
Then in ME2 your guy(orgirl) just wakes up in hospital after the battle? No chance. I just couldn't get past it long enough to give it a chance. I still have them and I know I should but...
Interesting take and totally understandable though that's not quite what happens in the plot:
- The battle for the Citadel at the end of ME1 wasn't the entire known universe banding together by far. What we see is a couple of ships that happened to be nearby because at that point, most of the universe still doesn't believe the reapers even exist.
- After the battle, the reapers don't show up at the Citadel but at the edge of the galaxy. They are still months to years away from eradicating the Alliance. Yes, they have a whole lot of firepower but taking down thousands of planets full of enemies who now know what's coming takes a lot longer than an attack on a single space station where nobody was prepared for an attack.
- At the beginning of ME2, Shepard doesn't just wake up at the hospital after the battle you saw in ME1. During a later battle/patrol (?), the Normandy gets ambushed and completely destroyed. Shepard dies and their corpse drifts through space. Cerberus (who were only briefly mentioned in a side quest in ME1) manage to retieve the body and use an experimental technology to bring them back to life (it's implied that they basically built a Shepard-shaped cyborg who has access to at least some of ME1 Shepard's memories). The goal is to have a well-respected figurehead who can assemble a squad to take down some critical Reaper infrastructure.
Walking Dead S07E01. I think that episode could have been a perfect ending. They dragged it a lot after.
Season one of Twin Peaks. Never should have been a season two. I'm ambivalent about Fire Walk With Me. Season 3 was a nice touch.
Season 4 of DEXTER, season 5 maybe to see the aftermath. The last 3 seasons were unnecessary.
Surprise motherfucker!
S08 of Two and a Half Men, before Charlie died. It was okay after but just not the same anymore.
Vikings ended like an episode or two after Ragnar died. It didn't need to drag on with everyone's stories so Ling after amd it all just went nowhere. It needed to end after the sons got their vengeance and celebrated. Everything after that was stupid.
Do games count? I would say Halo 3.
S10 E12 (The Doctor Falls) is the end of (Modern) Doctor Who. Such a perfect episode epitomising the character, and closing an arc for one of the longest villains. He even 'dies' at the end.
Everything since then has been badly written and purposefully disrespectful to the cannon and the audience, and has wasted so many fantastic actors.
The Gunslinger by Steven King.
He wrote some dark and towerry other books, but they're unrelated fan fiction
Season 1 of Once Upon A Time. Its OK afterwards, but an awful lot of what made the show good was wondering whether it was real or if the kids a mad fantasist. Afterwards it's watchable but it's different.
Babylon 5 ended with season 4 and the excellent shadow war arch.
I only wish I ever learned who's the mother and how he met her...
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