Series Finales

Friends, Breaking Bad, Lost, Six Feet Under, Mad Men... Every show comes to an end. For viewers who have spent years invested in these worlds, the finale means watching an entire universe go dark. Time had been stretching out – then, suddenly, it snaps shut. The comforting illusion that a series is an open-ended form, one that could walk alongside us forever, shatters in a handful of scenes that lead nowhere. 

To this day, angry tweets about the Lost finale keep rolling in. David Chase, the creator of the Sopranos, is still being put on the spot to account for his masterpiece's famously ambiguous ending, eight years on. 

Were series ever meant to last? Series Finales sits down with the greatest American showrunners to dig into that razor's-edge moment when everything stops – and sometimes leaving fans desperately wanting more.