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Writing for television is all about staying vigilant.
One way to do that is to get viewers emotionally invested … only to put their beloved characters in mortal peril, emotional hell, or a combination of the two.
Here are some of the most iconic cliffhangers in TV history — not all of which ended up satisfying viewers in the long run. But they all got people talking and kept them watching week after week.
As the final season of The Sopranos wore on and the corpses piled up, it became clearer than ever that Tony, the head of a New Jersey crime family played by James Gandolfini, would not have a happy ending to his story in 2007. latest, “Made in America. “
But audiences didn’t expect the show’s final scene to be the Sopranos’ family gathering at a dinner party while “Don’t Stop Believin'” played on a jukebox.
And even more unexpected? That the camera would show the opening of the front door of the eating place before fading to black, completing the viewing.
Across the country, other people thought HBO had collapsed. But no, author David Chase made it clear that this was the end, and he had no intention of telling us if the user who arrived at the restaurant was there to punch Tony.
When the fifth season of “Game of Thrones” aired in 2015, audiences knew they should grow fond of anyone.
But if “Thrones” had a main character by season five, it was Jon, played by Kit Harington.
So when season five concluded the episode “Mother’s Mercy,” in which his so-called “brothers” conspired to kill him via group stabbing, fans were shocked — well, the ones who hadn’t read the books at least.
After the season ended, Harington promised that he would not return to the world of Westeros, which left the audience wondering even more: what would happen next?
You’d have to watch season six to get out.
“The Walking Dead” waited until the season six finale in 2016 to kindly introduce Negan (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to the audience after making fun of him during the season.
And what an introduction it was. After terrorizing our main characters off-screen, Negan realized he couldn’t decide who to kill and used a game of Eenie Meenie to pick his victim in the episode “Last Day on Earth.”
But we didn’t get to see his selection. Instead, the camera shifted to the victim’s point of view, who then violently punched Negan.
Viewers didn’t find out until season seven who was the target of Lucille’s wrath.
By design, “Star Trek” is an episodic series. But when the Season 3 finale aired in June 1990, it became apparent that even “Star Trek” knows the strength of clever suspense.
The third season ended with the episode “The Best of Both Worlds,” in which Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), the brave captain of the Enterprise, is taken captive by an evil alien species called the Borg, who have the power to eventually take over the galaxy.
Thus, Picard’s friend and first officer, William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), has a choice: does he organize a rescue project or take the opportunity to annihilate the Borg, Picard?
The episode concludes with Riker firing on the Borg’s ship before hitting us with a “To be continued…” leaving Picard’s fate up in the air until season four.
Throughout the first season of “Lost” in 2004 and 2005, enthusiasts kept hearing that this island wasn’t your typical desert island.
But in the episode “Exodus,” when Jack (Matthew Fox) and Locke (Terry O’Quinn) nonetheless blow up the door of a mysterious trapdoor they discovered in the jungle floor and realize that it was deep underground, we get confirmation: Something is wrong on this island.
Meanwhile, Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), a young boy on the plane, is snatched from a rescue raft by a mysterious group of people known only as the Others.
In hindsight, it’s crazy that we had to wait months to find out who took Walt and what was at the bottom of the hatch.
From the first episode of “Lost,” it became clear that each episode would split the action between actual events on the island and flashbacks, centered around a survivor.
But the Season 3 finale, “Through the Looking Glass,” which aired in 2007, looked different. We have noticed Jack (Fox) severely depressed, even suicidal, and addicted to painkillers, which was an unknown component of Jack’s illness in the past. history.
But the final scene of the last one showed us the truth: it wasn’t a flashback, but a flash-forward, letting us know that at least Jack and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) would be rescued from the island at some point in the future. and that Jack tearfully told Kate that they want to return to the island, thus changing the course of “Lost” forever.
As “Dallas” entered its third season, audiences were captivated by the inner workings of Ewing’s oil dynasty and farm animals.
And no character was more admired (or reviled) than JR Ewing (Larry Hagman), a scheming oil tycoon who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted.
When the Season 3 finale, “A House Divided,” ended with JR getting shot by a mysterious shooter, the audience was fueled with the question “Who shot JR?”
It may have been anyone, because everyone on the show had an explanation for why killing JR. In fact, everyone on the show filmed JR to keep the audience and crew a secret.
It took four episodes of season four before the shooter’s identity was revealed.
Fifteen years after the “Dallas” episode, “The Simpsons” concluded its sixth season in 1995 by showing Mr. Burns (Harry Shearer), the greedy owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, getting shot.
The first component of the episode has a lot of clues (and some red herrings) as to who shot Burns, but like Ewing before him, they all had an explanation for why they needed his death.
Perhaps we won’t spoil it here, but the season seven premiere clarifies who shot Burns, and the reveal was worth the wait.
“The West Wing” became a phenomenon in its first season in 1999 and 2000, but it took the cliffhanger of the first season finale (“What Kind of Day Has It Been”) to put it on the map.
All of our beloved characters, the president’s eldest, Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), attend an occasion where the president speaks when a gunman opens fire.
In the chaos, you can tell that each member touches the ground. But before we can assess who’s safe, the camera goes off and we only hear a panicked Secret Service agent on the radio asking who struck.
We didn’t know the solution until the season premiere, two months later.
Expect what will happen in “Twin Peaks,” which began as a series of murders and mysteries and ended up as something else entirely.
But in the first season, author David Lynch more often embraced the mystery of the show, until the final moments of the last episode, when FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), our main character, is shot dead at his door by an unknown gunman. .
There are still theories today about the identity of Cooper’s killer, making it an all-time thriller.
The first season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” which aired in 2005, had plenty of characters to juggle, but the most desirable thing at the time was to see Meredith Gray (Ellen Pompeo), a surgical intern, fall in love with her boss/neurosurgeon. Derek Pastor (Patrick Dempsey).
It seemed like they would have discovered their disorders in the season one finale, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” after all, only for a statuesque redhead (Kate Walsh) to greet Derek and tell Meredith, “You’re going to have to be the woman who was fucking my husband. “
Across the country, their jaws dropped, and the answers probably wouldn’t come until months later, in season two.
Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) were one of the most important couples of our time.
Thus, it was a huge surprise when Ross decided to marry Emily (Helen Baxendale), his British girlfriend of only a few months, in the 1998 finale of season four, “The One With Ross’s Wedding.”
But the lure of Ross and Rachel’s unfinished business was too much for Ross, and the audience (and Rachel) gasped when Ross said, “I, Ross, will walk you Rachel” down the aisle.
The celebrant asks Emily if she continues, and before we know her answer, the episode ends, leaving Ross’s marital prestige hanging in the air until the season premiere five months later, aptly titled “The One After Ross Says Rachel. “
“Alias” starred Jennifer Garner as super-spy Sydney Bristow and Michael Vartan as Vaughn, her handler.
Their explosive chemistry was a huge component of the show’s success, but it became ridiculous that those other people didn’t fall in love over the course of season two.
And that’s what they did, until the end of the second season, “The Telling,” in 2003. After surviving a particularly violent fight, Sydney wakes up in Hong Kong and asks for Vaughn.
He arrives, only to tell Sydney that she has been missing for two years and that, in the meantime, he is married to someone else. A real coup, even 21 years later.
The titular vampire slayer, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), has given more of herself than any teenager deserves in the first five seasons of “Buffy. ”
But in the 2001 fifth season finale, titled “The Gift,” he sacrificed himself to save his sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), his friends, and the town of Sunnydale.
The final shot of the episode is a close-up of Buffy’s tombstone, which reads, “She saved the world. A lot. “
How can there be a sixth season of “Buffy” without Buffy?Fans were asking this question until the show returned for season six, when it became clear that Buffy’s death would have long-term consequences for the show.
Throughout the first episode (“Be Still My Heart”), Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin) tries to tell her boss, Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle), that she’s worried about her patient’s condition.
John, busy with other things, ignores him, with disastrous consequences. The patient stabs them both, causing the episode to end with a haunting symbol of John and Lucy staring at each other on the floor next to a hospital bed.
And that’s nothing compared to what happened the following week when their peers discovered them in this state in the episode “All in Family. “