Worst TV Cliffhangers

The Simpsons found great success before with their "Who Shot Mr. Burns" cliffhanger way back at the end of Season 6. No one could wait to finally solve the mystery, and FOX even started a contest where fans could call in to guess who did the deed.

This year, in its twenty-second season, The Simpsons tried to pull off another cliffhanger. This one with significantly lower stakes. The burning question is whether or not Ned Flanders and Mrs. Krabappel will hook up, with the decision dependent on fan voting. Unfortunately, the ballot has no "who cares" option.

Not all cliffhangers are season finales. In the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fifth season, "Buffy vs. Dracula," everything seems to be just as it was for Buffy and her friends until the very end when it's revealed that Buffy suddenly has a little sister, and no one seems to think it's strange.

Not only was this met with a widespread "lolwut," but it ushered in the horrible Dawn era of BTVS, meaning this cliffhanger actually marks the moment the show started going off the rails.

LOST cliffhangers typically worked because you had no idea what was going to happen next, and the new questions they brought up were fun and intriguing enough that you didn't mind spending six months pondering them. 

Season 5's detonation of Jughead, however, left us with too little understanding of potential consequences to fully comprehend what it even meant for the characters involved. Ditto for the death of Jacob, someone we barely knew, much less understood. Ultimately, this head scratching cliffhanger was only a harbinger of more LOST disappointment to come.

Supernatural spent three brooding seasons leading up to the battle between Lucifer and The Winchesters in an episode that was designed to end the show for good.

Then, producers decided to keep the show going. So instead of Sam heroically sacrificing his life and Dean finally finding the family he always wanted, Season 5 ends in a cliffhanger featuring a somehow resurrected Sam peeking in on Dean's domestic bliss. This caused many fans to throw up their hands and finally give up on the show.