JCC TeeVee cliffhangers, best of (and/or complain / exult herein)

I digs me some cliffhangers and there have done been a lot of 'em. However, TV keeps trying to do "cliffhangers" to end a season but, honestly, TV should just admit that The Greatest Goddamn Cliffhanger Ever already happened and just give up on cliffhangers cuz The Greatest Goddamn Cliffhanger Ever is this and it will never, ever be topped:




Or maybe not. Any other good ones? Or terrible ones? Yeah, yeah, I know "Who Shot J.R." is the grandaddy of 'em all but I mean, c'mon.

You know what's also a thing now? MID-SEASON cliffhangers. Dammit! "Wait 4 weeks to see what happens, ahhhhh!!"

 

Okay, second best cliffhanger ever. But, seriously, try to top these two!

 

Really, everything begins and ends with "Who Shot J.R.?" from Dallas, as you note. In my opinion, any cliffhanger basically goes:

"Who Shot J.R.?"

"The Best Of Both Worlds"

<large gap>

Everything else...

Some good ones, include...

Alias, "The Telling" (S2 finale)
Babylon 5, "Z'ha'dum" (S3 finale)
Chuck, "Chuck Versus the Ring" (S2 finale)
Person of Interest, every season finale.
Twin Peaks, "Beyond Life and Death / Episode 29" (S2; the previous series finale)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Gift" (S5 finale)
The West Wing, "What Kind Of Day Has It Been?" (S1 finale)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "A Call To Arms" (S5 finale)

And honorable mention for my parents generation, not as good as "Who Shot J.R.?" but: Dynasty, "Royal Wedding"

 

My favourite is form Doctor Who, The Pandorica Opens, where the Doctor is locked in an inescapable prison, Rive Song is trapped in an exploding TARDIS, Rory has shot Amy and the entire universe ends.

 

I am surprised that no one has suggested Battlestar's season 4 break. Everyone standing on Earth looking utterly crushed was just evil.

 

Unresolved cliffhangers drove me away from love watching tv shows.

Invasion
Surface

Go to hell!

 

Nothing will ever top Who Shot JR, as dp4m said.

For brutal dramatic effect, though, I loved the BSG one, totally set you up for supreme triumph and then kick you in the gut. Plus the fact that it may have been the final episode ever due to the writers' strike.

 

That's exactly why I love that one. At first you're all excited because they made it to Earth. Then you see everyone standing around looking completely crushed and you think, "Wow! That's cold!" Then you're just really confused because this has been the goal of the series from the beginning and there's still ten more episodes. And yes it almost became the most depressing series finale ever.

 

And the cliffhanger ending for the second season finale, "Star One". If only they'd worked out the details for who the invaders were originally intended to be.

 

Best of Both Worlds tops it all for me.

 

"Mr. Worf....fire!"

 

Is the BSG thing really a cliffhanger? It's not unresolved. It's just a twist ending. A very effective one, I'll grant, but it didn't leave me with some huge tension about how things would turn out.

 

Dexter S4 finale - Rita...

 

Also, it wasn't Earth? So not much of a cliffhanger?

 

The season 2 finale of Rick and Morty ended with one heck of a cliffhanger, and they had a post-credits stinger, like they do, where the character Mr. Poopy Butthole (sorry mods if that is against the TOS, but that REALLY is the character's name; I'm not writing it just to say it) comes in to break to fourth wall and rubs the fact we have to wait a year and a half to see it resolved.

 

Red Dwarf ended with a surprisingly intense nailbiter, for a comedy. And it was never resolved, even when the cast came back years later for a reunion show that just didn't click.

 

This was pretty awesome...until the episode after



Seriously, that would have been the best regeneration of the entire series if RTD actually followed through with it.

 

Greatest TV moment ever was the season premier when the Galactica dropped into New Caprica and launched Raptors and flashed back out into orbit.

 

Maybe not the best cliffhanger really but there's a season of "Fresh Prince of Bell-Air" (really!) that ends in the final seconds with Will telling Uncle Phil that he was going to stay in Philly. Interesting note, okay.

However, this may be one of my favourite cliffhanger resolutions ever to that predicament. Takes less than 50 second to resolve. Genius:



"Yo homes, to Bell-Air!"

 

Not long to go now until Season 4, still waiting for this one to be paid off:

 

The best moment from that mess of a season.