And sure enough, the finale starts out excitingly: Mulder breaks into a government facility and electrocutes an alien disguised as a human soldier. Unfortunately for fans of Mulder and story momentum in general, he's immediately caught and put on trial for murder.

20th Television

20th Television

In order to prove his innocence, Mulder and Skinner call witnesses who each flashback to different plots of old episodes, laying out the convoluted mess of the show's mythology and trying to make it sound like it's not meandering nonsense. It's the TV writer's equivalent of poring through your drunken texts trying to figure out what the hell you did the night before.

Also, for some reason, Mulder's trial happens in a shitty basement which is presumably used to store the FBI's Christmas decorations. It's pretty ridiculous that the big series finale of a show predicated on traveling the country is mostly confined to a dank basement.

20th Television

20th Television

Mulder's eventually found guilty, because aliens, and has to escape. He reveals to Scully that the alien invasion is coming in December 2012 -- which we now know is bullshit, because the worst thing we got in the winter of 2012 was the first Hobbit movie. The show ends with Mulder and Scully shacked up in a cheap motel room, on the run from the feds, laying together while inexplicably not having sweaty, on-camera sex.

20th Television

Of course, the story picked up years later with the second X-Files movie, which essentially ignored most of this. The FBI drops their goddamned murder charge so that Mulder can help them with a case -- and he does, despite the fact that the finale implied that the FBI higher-ups were aliens themselves. But through the magic of lazy writing and the charm of Xzibit, all of this crazy shit is shrugged off and forgotten.

Anyway, let's all get our hopes up for the new season from the same people who crapped this out!

Quantum Leap was a beloved time travel show in which Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) would "leap" into strangers' bodies throughout history. His mission was to put right what once went wrong, while also finding the time to sleep with a lot of women ... which come to think of it, is creepy as hell. Sure, it's great that you saved that kid from drowning, Dr. Beckett, but how is what you're doing not rape, exactly?

Universal Television

In the last episode, Sam somehow leaps into his own body in some kind of odd purgatory-like dimension that looks like a bar -- which, as far as purgatory dimensions go, ain't half-bad. Also, a guy who is implied to be God is there, working as a bartender. If the fact that even God had to have a part-time job in the early '90s doesn't disprove Reaganomics, what will?

Universal Television

Universal Television

But despite all the existential themes and hanging out with God, the episode wasn't written as a series finale. When the word came down that the show wouldn't be coming back, the producers employed what's known in the business as the "Poochie died on his way back to his home planet" tactic: They slapped a title card on the end explaining that Sam never fucking made it home. "Thanks for watching, assholes" was implied, but not stated.

Universal Television

This is crappy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, every opening of every episode had the narrator stating that Sam hoped the next leap would be the leap home, so this is kind of a blunt way of shitting all over his whole objective. Secondly, they were presumably so rushed that they didn't even have two seconds to spell-check and realize that they spelled their own main character's name wrong. But seriously, thanks for watching, assholes.

OK, maybe Scott Bakula is cursed. How else can you explain how his next long-running sci-fi show stuck the landing about as well as Harrison Ford on a golf course? Enterprise was a Star Trek prequel series in which Bakula played the first guy to ever fart on Captain Kirk's chair. For the finale, the series bizarrely flash-forwarded to the Star Trek: The Next Generation era, where a continuity-ruiningly portly Commander Riker runs a holodeck simulation to help him through a crisis of conscience. A simulation of what? Why, the first Enterprise crew, of course. So we see a story concluding all the Enterprise plotlines, but with Riker awkwardly skulking around like an invisible third wheel.

CBS Television Distribution

CBS Television Distribution

Other times, Riker actually interacts with the Enterprise gang, dressed as some random sex-crazed crew member everyone forgot about ...

CBS Television Distribution

... or even worse, as the ship's cook. And just because Riker's there weighing an intense moral dilemma doesn't mean that he's not up for creeping all over the more comely holographic historical figures.

CBS Television Distribution

CBS Television Distribution

Not surprisingly, fans weren't thrilled with the finale, since it took screen time away from the characters they were there to see off to focus on a storyline that had already been wrapped up back in the '90s. It also caused some Trek fans to wonder if the whole damn show was the equivalent of a bored guy reading Wikipedia all night (but with holograms).

Things were awkward behind the scenes, too. Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker, confided that the episode was an "unpleasant memory," and that it hurt Bakula's feelings. The writer even apologized for how much the finale pissed fans off. Maybe in J.J. Abrams' new time-travel-altered Star Trek continuity, Commander Riker's parents will never meet, so these events will be written out of existence and the universe will be spared a whole lot of subpar tromboning.

The episode has no side plot or adventure. The other Angels do nothing but wait in a hospital to see if the bullet in their friend's head is going to kill her, which of course triggers abundant flashbacks to other episodes. It's depressing in every sense.

Sony Pictures Television

Kelly doesn't die, and because this is the last episode, Charlie finally shows up in person ... while wearing a surgeon's mask. Then he fucks off to God knows where without even bothering to muster a brief hello to the woman who got shot in the head while doing his bidding.

Sony Pictures Television

Sony Pictures Television

And that's it. That's where the show ends. We can only conclude that the writers got a vision of the Cameron Diaz movies and decided to do everything possible to kill the franchise and prevent that future.

In the episode's final moments, as they're leaving this observation room to go party, one of them bumps up against the controls with their butt -- because like Chekhov said, if you introduce someone's big ass in the first act, it should eventually have an impact on the story.

Universal Television

Universal Television

A second after they leave, this happens:

Universal Television

Universal Television

They just missed the Earth signals! And that's how the show ended: with a depressing butt dial. Now they'll never get to Earth, but not for their rectum's lack of trying. This is the kind of cruel twist normally reserved for jerks who stumbled into The Twilight Zone, not intrepid space heroes.

A new series was soon launched, Battlestar Galactica 1980, but the ending wasn't an improvement. In the finale, we flashback to find out what happened to Starbuck (who wasn't in the new series until that point). Apparently, he crash-landed on a strange planet where he repaired a downed Cylon robot out of loneliness. Instead of trying to kill him, the usually-murderous robot became his buddy, playing cards with him and bickering with him like they're an old married couple. It's like a backdoor pilot for a really fucked-up sitcom.

Universal Television

Universal Television

Bizarrely, the Cylon decides that Starbuck needs a woman and storms into the desert, returning the next day with an unconscious lady whom he plucked seemingly out of nowhere. She's magically pregnant with Starbuck's child, because she's some kind of wizard or god -- or in retrospect, probably Bob Dylan in disguise. In the end, Starbuck's Cylon buddy is killed and the strange woman and his magic baby take off on a spaceship, leaving him alone to die.

See? It's at least half as ridiculous as the modern version.

To escape the gun-wielding villain, Mork uses a pair of time-travel shoes to go back in time ...

CBS Television Distribution

CBS Television Distribution

CBS Television Distribution

... but the shoes malfunction, and Mork and Mindy end up stuck in the prehistoric age, living with a clan of primitive humans.

CBS Television Distribution

CBS Television Distribution

The bad guy tracks them down, and Mork uses the faulty shoes to escape again. The pair fly through some kind of time vortex, unsure of where they're going. And that's where the show ends: with the beloved couple lost in time, caught in a swirling tunnel of nothingness, relentlessly pursued by a gun-wielding maniac. A bold move for a sitcom, but kind of a mindfuck for fans. If you thought it was rough seeing the Seinfeld gang in jail, imagine if it ended with them floating in some kind of endless black hole. That would be a show about nothing.

Immediately, Superman leaps into action. And by "action," we mean we kind of see a blurry thing in the distance. First, Superman needs to save Air Force One, presumably because Harrison Ford doesn't exist in the DC Universe. As if Superman has a restraining order against the cameraman, we only see him from way far away.

Warner Bros. Television

At the end of the episode, we flash-forward to when Clark is working for The Daily Planet. It finally seems as though we're finally going to get to see Superman after ten years of watching a Superman show. Clark runs up to the roof of the building, rips open his shirt and ... the series ends.

Warner Bros. Television

Warner Bros. Television

This would be like if Batman Begins took ten years to watch and then ended seconds before Bruce Wayne started applying his eye makeup. Maybe they were sparing us the sad moment where Superman is instantly recognized by a Smallville citizen, since that guy didn't even wear glasses for most of his teen years.

J.M. McNab co-hosts the pop culture nostalgia podcast Rewatchability, which can also be found on iTunes. Follow him on Twitter @Rewatchability.

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