Fantasy is one of TV’s favorite genres, but it can run into a big problem sometimes: you spend years immersed in a world full of magic, monsters, and conspiracies, only for the finale to leave you shocked, wondering how the ending didn’t live up to all the episodes that came before. Plenty of shows have made audiences suffer like this, such as the famous Game of Thrones and also Lost, which had everyone waiting for answers that never came. Even underrated series like Merlin fall into this category. And disappointing finales are almost a tradition in fantasy, since the genre sets sky-high expectations. So, when the pressure hits, some productions try to wrap things up fast or please everyone, and it rarely works.
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With that in mind, here are 3 major fantasy shows that had everything going for them to shine through the end, but ended up delivering frustrating and underwhelming finales.
3) Once Upon a Time
In the 2010s, Once Upon a Time came out swinging, and it started strong because it was simple, yet creative and highly effective: a town full of fairy tale characters living like normal people, with no memory of who they really were. It worked because the show delivered mystery, dynamic interactions between everyone (without exception), and a good dose of nostalgia. But as the years went on, the show started piling on rules, counterplots, parallel universes, and alternate versions of characters until it became a maze. And okay, that alone wasn’t enough to completely derail the audience, but then the final season made it clear that the series was running on autopilot.
The biggest problem with the Once Upon a Time finale is that it tries to be grand without the structure to pull it off. It wants to feel like a celebration of the journey, and that’s great in theory, but in practice, it’s rushed and packed with easy resolutions. Regina’s (Lana Parrilla) coronation even makes thematic sense, but it doesn’t land because everything around it feels hurried and disconnected. Sure, with a fairy tale show, a happy ending is understandable, but this wasn’t something simple — it had been built up over seven seasons. The promise was to reimagine fairy tales, but it ended up feeling like a patchwork quilt that didn’t know which part of its own story to value.
2) The Vampire Diaries
Let’s be honest: at its peak, The Vampire Diaries was addictive. It had pace, solid drama, and most importantly, a love triangle that actually drove the story. In the show, Elena (Nina Dobrev) gets involved with two vampire brothers while Mystic Falls becomes a hub for all kinds of supernatural creatures. But over time, the series started recycling the same formulas, stretching out conflicts, and relying on twists that didn’t hit the same way anymore. The final season even tries to recapture some of the emotional weight, but it lacks the consistency of earlier seasons — and you can tell the team was more focused on wrapping things up than properly concluding them.
In the end, for many fans, Stefan (Paul Wesley) dies in a sacrifice that feels forced, and the final reunion between Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Elena is completely anticlimactic (not to mention Bonnie’s (Kat Graham) ending, which a lot of fans disliked as well). After Dobrev left following Season 6, things really started to fall apart, since the main character was gone. The show tries to tie everything up neatly, but it’s obvious that multiple storylines are left hanging, and the overall narrative feels repetitive. The finale ends up being functional but weightless, like The Vampire Diaries was just in a hurry to close the book on something that had already run its course.
1) Supernatural
Here’s a show that ran for fifteen years and had everything it needed to be amazing from start to finish, but it only took one decision to ruin it all. Supernatural was driven by a simple yet compelling premise: two brothers hunting monsters and dealing with trauma, loss, and a mythology that kept expanding every season. And that’s what worked — Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester were the emotional core of the series, no matter how many angels, demons, or apocalypses came their way. They were the heart of the show, and the audience fell in love not just with them, but with their dynamic.
However, in the season finale, there was the most anticlimactic choice possible: Dean dies on a random hunt in a nearly mundane way, and Sam goes on with his life in a fast-forward montage that condenses decades like a slideshow. The characters who shaped the entire legacy of the series are barely present, and there’s zero emotional payoff for more than a decade of storytelling. The final episode feels disconnected from the rest of the show, almost like an epilogue for a completely different production with its own logic. In the end, Supernatural didn’t fail by trying too much — it failed by doing too little. After everything it accomplished on TV, delivering such a lukewarm finale is the biggest waste imaginable.
Have you watched any of these shows? What did you think of the ending? Let us know in the comments!
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