Canceled TV shows that ended on major cliffhangers

The Arrangement was a love story. Sure, it was a very complicated love story filled with Hollywood politics and one very powerful cult, but it was still a love story. That’s why its season 2 finale felt like such a cliffhanger. After Kyle (Josh Henderson) found out that Megan (Christine Evangelista) had cheated on him, the newlyweds declared war on each other. And thanks to E!’s decision to cancel the series, that’s the moment that will serve as the end of their love story. Oof. —Samantha Highfill

Creators Dan Fogelman and Rick Singer definitely ended the first season of their ratings-challenged series about the first female to play in Major League Baseball under the assumption that there would be a second season. After five months of waiting, Fox finally dropped the ax on the series, which is a shame because it ended with one hell of cliffhanger: Ginny (the perfectly cast Kylie Bunbury) sliding into an MRI machine after injuring herself in a game. How badly is she injured? Is this the end of her career? Alas, we’ll never find out. —Chancellor Agard

With a title like No Tomorrow, it was probably a forgone conclusion that this CW show would be canceled. Guess we’ll never find out if Xavier (Joshua Sasse) and the kids at NASA can find a way to stop the asteroid hitting the earth, or if Evie (Tori Anderson) is really meant to be with dreamy Mr. “Doctor Without Borders If We’re Meant to Meet Again We’ll Meet Again” Graham rather than the doomsday predictor X-man, or if a pending apocalypse is actually great for Cybermart’s sales (people tend bulk buy in times of crisis, after all). Guess you can check “go crazy over unanswered questions” off your apoca-list. —Ruth Kinane

Airing its series finale just days after the news of its cancelation, The Family ended with a bang. Well, multiple, actually. First, there was the very, um, targeted shooting of Doug, followed by the mysterious death of Bridey. (Did Willa kill her?!) But the real kicker was the identity of Doug’s shooter: Adam! He is alive after all. And in the episode’s last moments, he calls home to tell Ben he’s coming back for his family. —Samantha Highfill

After Max witnessed Jared shoving Carter, Finding Carter’s sweetheart lost control. In a rare moment of anger from Max, he hit Jared over the head with a bottle. Sadly for both of them, it resulted in Jared’s death. Even worse? Season 2 ended with Max turning himself in for the crime, and now that MTV has canceled the show, fans will never know whether Max is spending his life behind bars. Another cliffhanger: Ben, who ended the season lying in the road after having been beaten up by a drug dealer. —Samantha Highfill

From day one, The Whispers was about Drill, an alien force that was using children to do its dirty work. Spoiler: Its dirty work was sending a signal home to tell all of its kind to travel to Earth so that they could take it over and, well, you know how world domination goes. And if abducting all the show’s children wasn’t enough of a cliffhanger, the season ended with Claire Bennigan (Lily Rabe) sacrificing herself to save her son. In other words, the star of the show was just abducted by aliens … and we’ll never know what happened next. —Samantha Highfill

Remember Reunion? Considering it was canceled due to low ratings, not many people do. But the little show about six friends and one grisly murder was set up to be one of the 2005-6’s great mysteries. With a lead-in from The O.C. and a cast including future TV stars Dave Annable and Chyler Leigh, Reunion was supposed to tell the story of one friend’s death in 2006, while tracking their lives through flashbacks starting in 1986 at their high school graduation.

But after only nine aired episodes, Fox pulled the plug. Four more episodes had been ordered, but did not air in the U.S. and the murderer was never revealed. Fans were left wondering who killed Samantha (Alexa Davalos), the speed-addicted half of the group’s perfect couple. During a TCA press panel Fox president Peter Liguori reportedly told the crowd that her daughter whom she had given up for adoption years earlier was the most likely suspect. But without a finale — or even a detailed story line — we’re left without closure. —Jessica Goodman

With a pretty self-explanatory title, Chasing Life told the story of April Carver (Italia Ricci), a young woman just getting started on her dream career when she was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer. And after years of fighting every battle cancer threw at her, April ended the second season by saying goodbye to her family, heading to Rome, and — heartbreakingly — contemplating accepting her fate. For the first time, she pondered ending the chase and letting herself die in Italy. And then the show was canceled. BUT IT’S CALLED CHASING LIFE. —Samantha Highfill

From day one, it was teased that Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell) was a special type of Tomorrow Person, but it wasn’t until the season finale that we realized just how special. When Stephen witnessed Cara (Peyton List) being shot and killed, the sadness he felt somehow reversed time, up until the point that he was able to go back and stop the shooter from killing Cara.

What that meant for Stephen and everyone involved, we’ll never know, because the show was canceled. (Not to mention we’ll never know how the ‘shipper couples ended up.) —Samantha Highfill

If you want to talk about ending on a cliffhanger, just look at Off the Map. The final scene of this series, which only lasted one season, ended with Lily (Caroline Dhavernas) discovering Mateo (Nicholas Rodriguez) lying on the ground after being shot, as his family’s cocaine field burned in the background. Talk about unanswered questions. —Samantha Highfill

Southland was canceled after its fifth season, which ended with the show’s biggest cliffhanger to date. Not only did Sammy (Shawn Hatosy) find out about Ben’s (Ben McKenzie) dark side, but John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) — still recovering from being kidnapped, mind you — walked out to ask his neighbors to turn off their loud generator when they got on his bad side. Fed up with life in general, Cooper began to beat his neighbors, and by the time the cops showed up, they saw a gun in his hand and fired. The final shot? A bleeding John Cooper lying on the pavement as sirens blare in the background. Cudlitz might’ve assured us that Cooper survived, but we’d have liked to see it. —Samantha Highfill

For Secret Circle fans, seeing Phoebe Tonkin in The Originals every week is a little bit heartbreaking — because we know the CW show she really belongs on. The supernatural drama, which also featured Britt Robertson, Thomas Dekker, Shelley Hennig, Jessica Parker Kennedy, and Chris Zylka, had a dark magic that worked its way into our hearts throughout the freshman series, and then was brutally ripped away the day after the finale aired. The biggest question we still need answered: What is going on with the mysterious four new Balcoin kids!? —Dalene Rovenstine

Although NBC’s post-apocalyptic drama waned in viewership and quality during its second season, that doesn’t make Revolution‘s lingering cliffhangers any less painful. The nanotech that had been responsible for leaving the world without power was slowly taking over and causing people to see visions of their loved ones telling them to travel to Bradbury, Idaho. The finale ended with a shot of Bradbury, Idaho seeing power restored and crowds of people walking toward the light. (True, a 4-part comic was released this summer to give some conclusion, but it’s not quite the same as a season 3.) —Dalene Rovenstine

Even the lyrical tones of Jim Dale’s narration couldn’t soften the blow of Pushing Daisies‘ untimely demise, which came after a shortened second season that literally opened the door to a whole new show. We left Ned (Lee Pace) and Chuck (Anna Friel) on her aunts’ doorstep, waiting to reveal that she was alive. And although an epilogue gave viewers a sense of what was to come, the unanswered questions — how did Ned explain himself? Did he ever tell Olive about his gift? — still hang in Coeur de Coeurs’ colorful air. The facts are these: We’re still not over this show. —Kelly Connolly

During the sci-fi drama’s series finale, aliens (yup, that was the show’s main twist) called Sleepers attempt to infect the world. And in the final minutes, their alien planet arrives in Earth’s orbit, threatening the humans who just barely managed to stop the spread of the virus. The arrival promised a less frustrating, absolutely bonkers storyline, but for those who stuck with the series until then, it was disappointing to be denied an all-out, chaotic human-alien confrontation — in other words, to be denied, well, The Event itself. —Shirley Li

The alien occupation drama lasted two seasons before getting axed. In its series finale, Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) manages to escape the release of the Bliss, the Visitor Queen Anna’s (Morena Baccarin) special telepathic ability to mind-control the masses, only to leave the bunker at the end of the episode to find that everyone above ground has been pacified, and that more alien motherships are on their way. Like The Event, V ended with a promise of an epic war between the underground humans and the Visitors, but that never made it to the screen. —Shirley Li

You can’t exactly end your show with ALF getting captured by an Alien Task Force. To be fair, they didn’t plan to end it that way — obviously it was canceled — but still: What are fans supposed to do with that? —Samantha Highfill

Even with Lena Headey and Summer Glau starring, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had a rough go at finding a stable audience throughout its two-season run. The 2009 finale — which ended up being a series finale — saw John Henry, Weaver, and John Connor flee to the future. But once there, no one has ever heard of John Connor. Without resolution, the characters and the audience are living the darkest timeline. —Dalene Rovenstine

The classic baby twist is always interesting. That is, if you actually get to watch it play out. For fans of Lois (Teri Hatcher) and Clark (Dean Cain), the series ended when Lois and Clark found a baby with a red cape and a Superman symbol as a potential descendant of theirs from the future. And then the show was canceled. So. Many. Questions. —Samantha Highfill

Long story short: After Trixie shoots Hearst — making Hearst thirsty for revenge — Al, Bullock, and Star kill an innocent woman to use as a body double for Trixie and fool Hearst. It works. How is that the end of the story? Well, it’s not, and it left a lot of fans uneasy. —Samantha Highfill

Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller always knew his surreal rendition of the iconic serial killer was skating on thin ice, so each season finale was designed to provide both a thrilling cliffhanger and possible closure. Season 3 took this a little too literally, sending Will and Hannibal off the edge of an actual cliff. For now, that’s quite a Thelma and Louise conclusion to this bizarre love story. But any real fan has to be desperately aching to see how the rest of Fuller’s mad scheme would play out. –Christian Holub

You have to care a lot about a show to stick with it through an incest storyline. And for three seasons, a small number of fans cared a whole lot about Bored to Death, a quirky comedy about Jonathan (Jason Schwartzman), a struggling writer who attempts to become a crime-solving detective but really spends most of his time smoking weed with his best friend (Zach Galifianakis) and best boss (Ted Danson). Jonathan’s biggest mystery is the identity of his biological father, and to his sleuthing credit, he solves the case — but immediately realizes it means he’s been sleeping with his half-sister (Isla Fisher). And then the season ends. And then the show was canceled. And now? We’re still waiting on that Bored to Death movie. Take note, HBO. —Stephanie Schomer

Sure, the high-concept drama about a global blackout during which people glimpsed their futures started out compelling, but by the time it reached its first season (and series) finale, FlashForward was running on narrative fumes, ending with what amounted to a “huh?” of a cliffhanger. A second global blackout ensues. A montage shows what happens to some of the major characters. And then the FBI building explodes with Mark (Joseph Fiennes) still inside. Does he survive?! We’ll never know, and we won’t need a blackout to find out. —Shirley Li

When Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto) can’t find the right words to apologize to Angela (Claire Danes), he recruits Brian Krakow (Devon Gummersall) — who harbors a crush on Angela — to pen The Letter. Angela finds out Brian actually wrote it, but Brian denies it, and she leaves with Jordan by the end of the finale while casting a furtive glance at Brian. Those sincere and heartbreaking closing moments left that love triangle hanging, and even though the show’s creator Winnie Holzman later said Angela and Brian would have spent seasons pining for each other, we never saw any of that happen. —Shirley Li

Yes, yes, Heroes has since been “reborn,” but we can all agree it’s not really the same show – no Claire, no Sylar, no Peter. Plus, the driving force of Heroes Reborn comes from a terrorist attack in its first episode, not the dramatic public reveal of Claire Bennet’s healing abilities. Fans wondering how the sudden publicity of superpowers would affect the lives of Peter, Hiro, and our other favorites will just have to wonder forever. –Christian Holub

The ending of Angel was no joke: Cordelia was dead, Fred was overtaken by Illyria, Wesley was dead, and Lorne went his own way after killing Lindsay. Then, just as Angel, Illyria, Gunn, and Spike are overrun by demons and dragons, etc. in an alley, all fans see is Angel swinging his sword toward the screen as it fades to black. And then, the show’s canceled. So we’ll assume he won? —Samantha Highfill

Joan’s journey appeared to be just beginning at the end of season two of Joan of Arcadia, which pointed to a much bigger mission for its heroine. In the finale, God informs Joan that there’s a much greater threat on the horizon – an adversary – aiming to use his power for evil. But, without a third season, fans never got to find out how the epic battle of good vs. evil would’ve played out. (What if God was one of us? Well, He would’ve called for a new season, that’s for sure.) —Megan Daley