Ashtyn Britt
abritt@lc.edu
There are few things that feel worse than a great show being canceled. For instance, when a show gets canceled and the previous season ended on a cliffhanger! While this should never happen, it, unfortunately, happens a lot more than we as an audience deserve. So I decided to name a few cliffhanger endings that shake me personally to this very day, and I pray for you all you not ever have to face this kind of the first-world-level problem. Obviously, this will contain spoilers for all the stories mentioned.
Devious Maids
I’m still angry about this. Marisol was shown at the end of season four to have been kidnapped on her wedding day, leaving blood on a broken windowsill. Then, in the worst twist of fate a show can offer, it got canceled! Never will we know where Marisol went, or see anything more about Rosie, Carmen, or Zoila! It’s not fair to the fans who’ve been watching since the beginning! Netflix, I demand answers and a fifth season!
Clone High
This one at least leaves hope for the future. This show was so far ahead of its time, giving great satire and some of the funniest jokes through animation that I’ve seen in my life. Ending the series by literally everyone being frozen in ice after all the shocking moments of the series are revealed, this was a planned ending in the case should Clone High ever be brought back. I am still holding out hope for a return of Clone High to TV, and encourage everyone to sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/mtv-clone-high-season-two-reboot!
My Name is Earl
This one was a twist ending nobody saw coming. At the end of this show, we find out that Earl is possibly the biological father of his ex-wife’s oldest son, who she’d been very pregnant with the night she (thought she) met Earl and married him while he was intoxicated. We also find out that Darnell, who was Joy’s current husband, is not the father of her second child who it was believed to have been created by an affair with Joy and Darnell. The idea of Earl being a father was a huge shift in the show that could have been interesting, and possibly bring a new character in to explain the existence of the second child. However, these issues were never resolved and I occasionally find myself wondering how on earth Joy Hickey kept all these men straight.
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
All these years later, and we still never find out about what’s going on with the baby left on Superman and Lois’s doorstep, with a note claiming that the baby is actually their child. Was the baby really theirs? Did the baby have superpowers? Who had the baby and left it on the doorstep? Would there have been a scene that included a flying baby? So many questions!
Faking It
Technically this show was completed, but it sure didn’t feel that way for the audience. It showed that Amy, rather then ending up with Karma, ends up with Sabrina, who was a new character for the second half of season three and spent the majority of her time with Amy lying to her. It also let Karma end up with Felix, and not even bother to answer why Karma continues to be so jealous of any relationship Amy enters into. This felt like watching the first two acts of something and then missing the third act to bring everything full circle. I sincerely hope that perhaps we’ll get some sort of movie in the future or at the very least a decent fanfiction that can become a headcanon.
