The 8 worst and best series endings of 2023

Series farewells often hurt. After fans had to say goodbye to sci-fi milestones and horror phenomena last year, there were some emotional endings again in 2023. Some series were allowed to retire on their own terms, while others were canceled mercilessly and without closure. Netflix was often to blame.

Series endings can delight, reconcile, surprise or upset. The 8 Greatest Series FinalesWe have compiled for you those 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 with season 8 in 2023. Something happened Fear the Walking Dead difficult to emerge from the great shadow of the original over all these years. The final episodes were once again entirely dedicated to the character who started it all. After her apparent death in Season 4, Madison Clark now returned for the finale two bad seasons and one good season later, but the once complex and feared matriarch was almost unrecognizable.

Instead of letting the narrative worlds of both series finally collide with a final crossover, Fear ended up taking a completely different path. Even the reunion with daughter Alicia didn’t console the incredibly stupid telenovela twists in the finale. In the end, the feeling remains with this series despite some bright spots too many years of my life wasted to have. (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 home from ravenous Titans, he developed into a destroyer of humanity. The complex anime hit with numerous twists always kept us guessing about Eren’s true motivations. The final answer is sure to keep anime fans hotly debated for years to come.

The series ending of Attack on Titan was a meme even before it was released. Because the broadcast of the “final” 4th season lasted almost three years (!). The wait was still worth it. 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: With the second season of Shadow and Bone, an entire fantasy universe dies

Netflix sets after the 2nd season Shadow and Bone – Legends of Grisha and fans are completely amazed. Rightly so! Because by suddenly declaring the cliffhanger finale to be the end of the series, Netflix gives Shadow and Bone the worst possible ending. The fantasy series could have drawn a good conclusion with the first book trilogy, which was filmed in season 2.

Instead, the adventure leaves us with a final episode full of foreshadowing hanging in the air, which not even novel fans can solve. What’s even worse is that the already written spin-off series Six of Crows, one of the true fan favorites of the fantasy series, will now never be created. Netflix saw off a series universe just before it reached its actual climax. (IT)

Good: Star Trek Picard reconciles sci-fi fans after two disappointments

As Star Trek: Picard launched in 2020, the Trekkies’ expectations were greater 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 The Next Generation characters disappointed many fans. And then Season 3 gave us redemption for 20 episodes of average sci-fi.

Star Trek: Picard can finally be a real Star Trek series that balances space tension, dealing with decades-old conflicts and a nostalgic class reunion ultimately 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 is not a real Trekkie – or carpet hater. (MW)

Bad: Your Honor should have ended after season 1

In 2020 the series surprised Your Honor 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 a fatal accident. Because the person killed is the son of the local gangster boss.

The stark end to the inaugural season of Your Honor would have been an ideal ending. Instead, the success of the miniseries secured a second season. But despite Bryan Cranston’s haunting acting, it got lost in criminal sidelines and long abysses of grief. The new 10 episodes seemed like an unnecessarily long-winded epilogue. Unfortunately, this leaves Your Honor with a diminished impact. And with the knowledge that it would have been better to leave it at just one season. (IT)

Good: Succession ends after 4 seasons as a masterpiece

In the end does Succession 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 ones: 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 easily continue. With new strategies, new alliances. The fact that this doesn’t feel completely anti-climatic in its ambiguity proves conclusively how incredibly smart and humane Succession as a series is.

Because something is different. The engine behind the family vicious circle is dead. Only now is there the prospect of possible insight. Maybe the siblings will finally understand that their greatest failure yet 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 an empty victory in an anonymous meeting room. (LL)

Bad: The Blacklist says goodbye after 10 seasons with a catastrophic disappointment

I had The Blacklist canceled after eight long years in hopes of returning in the series finale and getting answers. So this year I went to see Raymond Reddington (James Spader) one last time. I had the naive hope that at the end of season 10 the series would ultimately provide an answer to the question it posed in the pilot episode: Who is Reddington and how does he feel about Liz?

Unfortunately, the showrunners have not only completely ignored this central motif in the last two seasons. They also ended the series very abruptly. We don’t get a reasonable ending for any character except Reddington or a prospect of what will happen to the characters we love after the finale. In the end, a lot of things come to nothing, which was painstakingly drawn out over 10 seasons, in the dusty wind of Spain. (AW)

Good: Ted Lasso hits the target again with the Season 3 finale

Three seasons long taught us Ted Lassothat as a football coach you don’t need to know anything about football to bring a good mood to a British sports team. Still an insider tip in this country, the comedy is the epitome of a successful feel-good series that scores points with lovable characters, lots of humor and important messages. In Season 3, Jason Sudeikis and his crew 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 work for another 10 seasons on AppleTV+, the series understood that sometimes you need a good ending must go exactly when it is most beautiful. Because a happy ending always includes a bit of melancholy and season 3 finds the perfect mix here in the finale. (IT)

Podcast: The best series of 2023 in review

From series blockbusters to absolute insider tips: In the Moviepilot podcast, we introduce you to the 23 best series that were to be discovered in 2023. You can listen to part 1 of the big annual review here.

Whether horror high-flyer The Last of Us, pirate hit One Piece, the masterful Succession finale or brilliant sci-fi discoveries. As series fans, you shouldn’t miss these highlights from Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Co.

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