The 10 Most Controversial TV Finales Ever

Quantum Leap

Some TV shows have the luxury of knowing sufficiently ahead of time that things will be ending and can thus craft a suitably epic finale. Others find out late in the day that they’re for the chop though and so the writers have to pull anything they can out the hat at the last minute and call it an ending. Unfortunately, that’s what happened to cult favourite 80s/90s sci-fi series, Quantum Leap. 

To jog your memory, the show saw Scott Bakula’s Sam Beckett hopping around time via other people’s bodies, with the ongoing mission to find out what was happening to him and finally get home. What the finale had to do, then, was provide some satisfying answers to these questions that literally drove the series.

Instead, it served up a nonsensical reveal that Sam had actually had control over his leaps all along and that he was (probably) the brains behind the Quantum Leap project in the first place. And, finally, as the screen faded to black, we got this message:

“Dr. Sam Becket never returned home.”

If there’s one surefire way to piss off the fans, it’s to deliver a half-assed conclusion to your show in the form of a caption… and to spell your own main character’s name wrong in the process.