Try to ignore it and focus on the things you liked about the show. And if you do a rewatch, find a better stop point. Star Trek Enterprise, for example, had a decent two-parter right before its final episode, which was a bad ending, so on a rewatch I just stop there.

I don't. I sigh and move on. If I watch the show again, I enjoy the enjoyable parts all the same.

What's to cope with? It's a TV show.

Kolob? Kobol! The Mormons were right all along!

/s

Ya I guess. I don’t know how to describe it the best. Just coping with the disappointment of the show not living up to what it could have been but instead letting you down

I will commiserate online with other fans of the show.

You cope with denial. Just kidding but show endings rarely stick the landing so you kind of get used to it.

Just enjoy TV man, stop looking at it as something to win or something to be accomplished. You're trying to deal with it because people you think it's only defined by the ending, it's the same way a generation of TV viewers only want shows they can watch in a week. They won't invest in a show unless it's already over. You feel like you need to cope because since the ending was bad you wasted your time. You lost TV when you could have been off winning with another TV show. Stop viewing TV that way, just enjoy the ride.

I'm curious about what show you're talking about. For me, it's often about the journey and not the destination. Even if I don't love every part of a show, there's enough that I do enjoy. People rag on Dexter post-season 4, but I find enough that I enjoy that if I do a rewatch, I still watch 5-8. The bad endings get easier to deal with over time. If I never end up rewatching a show where I found the ending lackluster, I still choose to focus on what it was that I enjoyed in the run up to the finale.

You don’t have to explain yourself, that guy really made that comment on a subreddit called r/television

Not a common hobby but I love to write or RP (co-writing) fandoms and develop storylines/characters myself. It allows me to have fun and tell more stories.

I mostly move on with my life

I watch Black Sails again. It sticks the landing.

Go outside

It’s tough, and I can’t always keep the ending from spoiling the entire series. If the ending didn’t feel completely satisfying, I can work with it, but not when it undoes the very story it created. The really unfortunate part is that those types of endings leave you questioning if the show was accidentally good and just showed it’s true colors at the end.

That’s…not what is going on here. To better explain let me it a little better:

I finished watching a show I watched called Yugioh Vrains(yes it is a Yugioh anime though was surprisingly engaging). I knew going in that the redemption from the show was no the best, due to a whole list of production issues. Despite that I looked past it as I loved the core concept and message.

The show lost 6 months of production time due to being ended early. The series thus had to rush it’s ending, making it of even less quality then the rest of the show. And ultimately it backpedaled on its very important message. It lost so much of what it could have been, and ended leaving me with a bit of disappointment, wishing it would have gone in a different direction.

But don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE the show. I will rewatch it again. I will still obsess over it and talk to other people about it and buy merchandise for it. I am not viewing this show as a “win” or “loss” but if I had to I would view it as a win, because even if the writers went back on the message, and even if the show was not the best, it still left me with so many memories and a different along with hopeful outlook of life. As the show said “I would rather be said that they are no longer here then never have met them at all”.

I guess the reason I asked the question though is that I was curious how other people have felt with being disappointed with a shows end. Along with that I wanted to see how I could help deal with a show leaving me disappointed, and not living up to what it could have been

The Billy stuff was sweaty. The rest was good.

By not caring.

To be honest I've yet to see a show with a bad ending where the signs weren't already there.

Cope? There are more important things in life than having to "cope" with a TV show's bad writing. Live your life, TV is not life.

I think about what I would do instead and have fun with that.

I watched a show called Yugioh Vrains, which despite being a Yugioh anime had a surprising good plot. The show tackled the idea of what if artificial intelligence has consciousness. It asks the question “can humans coexist with AI’s?”. The main antagonists ran simulations and found that humans can not, and so is not working to destroy the main characters AI, one of the six conscious AI that exist in the world. Later in the show it reveals a flaw in the initial simulation, showing that it grouped all of the six conscious AI together. When you do simulations for each of the AI, treating each as separate people, it is revealed that five of the six AI could coexist with humanity. The only one that could not was one that was the second antagonist of the show, which was trying to destroy humanity.

Then the show takes a 180 in the final season, saying that new simulations where ran, that said humans and AI could no coexist, but it does not give a reason for how these simulations where different than the ones they done in the previous season. They backpedaled on their message, partly because they had to rush it really bad, and partly so that the main character would have to battle his AI companion that they have been with since the start of the series. To me it feels like they overlooked the nuance of the message they where telling which showed how the main question can not necessarily be answered through simulations as the simulations can be easily misleading . To me it is just disappointing that they backpedaled and did so in a way that did not make that much sense.

Sorry for the rant

Oh and the signs where definitely there. And I knew that going in. The final season of the show was rushed heavily as the production lost 6 months of time to work on it. I guess I was just blindsided by how much it sucked and undid it’s entire story

Yeah yeah like all the cool kids in this thread I move on and it doesn't bother me, blah blah blah.

That said, a poor ending can taint my experience with the series as a whole—eroding my willingness to re-engage with the media.

For example, I adored Battlestar Galactica. Watched every episode, bought the DVDs, argued about it online, and all the usual fan shit. But after the rough final season(s) and craptactular finale, those DVDs started collecting dust. Haven't seen an episode in years.

[removed]

Better Call Saul was soooo close to being a top three show for me. They should've ended it halfway through the finale.

My head canon for a show usually ends when it starts to decline. Dexter's still doing his thing in Miami for me.

Endlessly defend the ending as good and the writers as having had a plan the whole time and you just don't get it.

​

- A lost fan.

I have probably seen game of thrones up until season 8 like five times. It always pains me a little bit but I just start watching something else and continue with my life. By now I have been very unlucky with loving any media cause it gets bad usually. MCU ended after End game, I shouldn’t have believed in CDPRs PR lies about cyberpunk 2077, fall guys was a great game before they turned gold into shit and selling themselves to Epic, Star Wars last trilogy, rings of power, blizzard, Nintendo and game freak. That’s just the top of my head.

I used to love media and got far too attached to it. But after so many disappointments I just shrug and move on with my life. I can finally touch grass.

Glad I stick to the game and don’t watch the anime. I’ve avoided this kind of stress by the sound of it. I’ll need to let my partner know in case he decides to try this, he’s on the original series. I think a friend of mine is on 5d.

I throw it in the garbage bin where it belongs. I don't take that sort of thing lightly

Really depends on the show. Lost's finale was a little disappointing, but the journey overall was awesome so I'll still rewatch it.

Falling Skies, on the other hand, had such a prolonged descent - four seasons!!! - into an absolute utter shitshow of plot armor and every season throwing out the rules and continuity from the previous ones that it was just an absolute hate-watch to the finish line. Being part of /r/FallingSkies during that time was very interesting, because I'd never seen a fandom so unified in ripping apart a show they'd all previously loved.

I watch other shows

Well time to throw out my morals and tell myself the ending was good after all/j

Thankfully from what I have heard(and me seeing the original) those ones are not as chaotic. But ya if your friends ever does watch Vrains end it after season two. Season 3 rips your heart out for seemingly no reason

The Lost finale was great.

I’m here for your attitude and love it

I die (again) on the inside; and then remember that reality, while less entertaining, at least allows me to immerse myself in another show's universe and hope things will be different there.

Make a better one up mentally

To me, a show is more about the individual episodes than the perfect series finale. So an ending being bad doesn't take anything away from me rewatching my favorite episodes.

Soprano's just say WTF and move on with your life

This.

I don't wish death on the creators of the show and tell people not to watch all 7 seasons because the ending ruins it all. I say watch and enjoy, and maybe they won't even be bothered. If they are, so what? They had six great seasons.