The Handmaid's Tale is finally wrapping up with season six.
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00:00 Deciding when to end a TV show is incredibly tricky.
00:03 Race to the end and you can wind up with a very clearly rushed catastrophe,
00:06 but let it drag on for years longer than the story needs
00:09 and you get something that fizzles out long after its audience have moved on.
00:13 And so while fans will usually be sad to see their favourite shows go regardless,
00:17 these 10 TV series feel like they're getting an ending that's been one hell of a long time coming indeed.
00:23 I'm Sye for WhatCulture.com and these are 10 TV shows that are finally ending.
00:27 Number 10 - The Walking Dead
00:29 It's often repeated among The Walking Dead's long-suffering fans that the show itself has
00:34 become a shambling zombie that simply refuses to die, but after 11 seasons,
00:38 it will finally air its last ever episode on November 20th.
00:42 Even though many have dubbed the last few seasons a fair return to form,
00:45 The Walking Dead is a show that clearly just kept going far beyond its actual
00:49 creative threshold because the ratings remained relatively high.
00:53 But when protagonist Rick Grimes departed the show midway through 2018's season 9,
00:58 the ratings entered a seemingly irreversible death spiral,
01:01 with a recent episode garnering an all-time low of just 1.55 million viewers
01:05 compared to its all-time high of 17.29 million for the season 5 premiere.
01:11 Though AMC already has numerous spin-off projects in the works,
01:14 one centred around Daryl and Carol, another around Rick and Michonne,
01:17 and one focused on Maggie and Negan, it'll nevertheless be a relief to see the flagship
01:22 show finally put out to pasture many years after it reached both its narrative and ratings peak.
01:27 9. The Flash
01:29 When the CW's The Flash launched back in 2014, who could have predicted that it would run for
01:34 a whole nine seasons and in turn become the longest-running Arrowverse series,
01:38 beating out even Arrow itself? Back in March, the CW confirmed that The Flash was
01:43 wrapping up with a shortened ninth season and given that it's the only Arrowverse
01:47 show left standing, it will also effectively bring the entire franchise to an end.
01:51 And it's certainly long past due. Though The Flash enjoyed strong reviews and ratings during
01:56 its first few seasons, things eventually tapered off and in season 7 last year,
02:00 the ratings finally dipped below 1 million viewers for the first time.
02:04 After three or four seasons, The Flash settled for being too much of the same,
02:08 and it became increasingly clear the central cast members had largely lost their enthusiasm
02:12 for their roles - beyond a paycheck, of course. For all but the most hardcore fans,
02:17 audience passion had dried up too.
02:19 8. The Crown
02:21 Though it only premiered back in 2016, it feels like The Crown has been on our screens for a
02:26 damn long time, perhaps because its end point has seemed within sight for almost three years now.
02:31 In early 2020, creator Peter Morgan stated that the historical drama series would end with its
02:35 upcoming fifth season, deeming it the perfect time and place to stop. But a few months later,
02:41 Morgan backpedalled and revealed that the show would indeed run for an additional season,
02:45 with six seasons having been his original plan when conceiving the show.
02:48 Season 5, set to premiere in November, will begin the show's final arc for Queen Elizabeth,
02:52 now portrayed in the later decades of her life. Season 6 began filming in August,
02:57 meaning it likely won't air until late 2023 at the earliest, but it's nevertheless reassuring
03:02 to know that the acclaimed series has an end point. Despite the sure temptation to drag the
03:06 show on in an attempt to forensically detail every major event in Elizabeth's life up to
03:11 her recent death, it's good to know that Morgan will be employing a little restraint.
03:15 7. Riverdale
03:17 It's been something of a running joke that nobody hates Riverdale more than the actors
03:20 starring in it, and with the show being renewed for a seventh and final season back in March,
03:24 many remarked that the young cast members were finally free from this commitment.
03:28 There's little denying that the CW's supernatural drama series started to go off the rails in its
03:33 third season, with a glut of increasingly silly storylines, though fans are sharply
03:37 divided on whether this was a good thing or not. To some, it elevated Riverdale into the canon of
03:42 guilty pleasure schlock, while some felt it strayed too far from the comparative modesty
03:46 of its earlier seasons. In recent years in particular, the Riverdale cast hasn't made
03:50 much of an effort to disguise their own half-joking disdain for the series, and given that many of the
03:55 primary cast members are gaining momentum outside of the show, their eagerness to move on is
03:59 understandable. There will be those who miss Riverdale and its flagrant trashiness, yet its
04:03 time to wrap up feels thoroughly overdue. 6. Stranger Things
04:08 On paper, Stranger Things doesn't feel like it's majorly outstayed its welcome, but due to both the
04:13 big-budget nature of its production and the pandemic, its four seasons to date have been
04:18 spread over six years. One of the key problems with the show in recent years has been the passage
04:22 of time. The four seasons to date have taken place over just two and a half years, despite the
04:27 central cast members having all noticeably aged considerably more per the series' shooting
04:31 schedule. And though season five will reportedly have a time jump of some sort, it feels like the
04:36 credibility of these youngsters both being youngsters and remaining in Hawkins will reach
04:40 snapping point if it continues on much longer. Plus, season four so brilliantly set the stage
04:45 for an epic, apocalyptic final season that going on any longer would feel like a massive mistake.
04:50 At least in that regard, the Duffers appear to have mapped things out and conceived season four
04:54 and five as effectively a two-part finale centred around the villainous Vekna. Here's to hoping they
04:59 stick the landing. 5. Grey's Anatomy
05:03 To be clear, no, you haven't missed any sort of official announcement about Grey's Anatomy
05:07 finally coming to an end, but as of its current 19th season, it's clear that Shonda Rhimes'
05:11 medical drama series has entered its endgame phase. Though its ratings have declined substantially
05:17 since its peak in 2006's season three, where it regularly pulled in over 20 million viewers,
05:22 the recent 18th season still averaged more than 4 million viewers per episode. That longevity is
05:27 largely credited to one person, star Ellen Pompeo, who has appeared as protagonist Dr Meredith Grey
05:33 in almost all of the show's 400 episodes to date. Pompeo and Rimes have stated numerous times that
05:38 the show will come to an end when Pompeo is ready, and given that the upcoming 19th season will see
05:43 Pompeo only appear physically in eight episodes, while still narrating all of them, the writing
05:48 feels very much on the wall. Pompeo is reducing her role to work on a new drama series for Hulu,
05:53 which will mark her first major non-Meredith acting role since Grey's Anatomy began back in 2005.
06:00 Ergo, putting two and two together, it seems that Grey's Anatomy will likely end within the next
06:05 few years. 4. Community
06:08 If you're thinking that Community wrapped up its sixth season run all the way back in 2015,
06:12 remember that this wasn't ever the plan of creator Dan Harmon. Ever since the season two episode
06:17 Paradigms of Human Memory birthed the line "six seasons in a movie", fans have championed the
06:22 idea of Community lasting long enough to fulfil that prophecy. And just recently, Peacock announced
06:27 that the Community movie is indeed finally happening, with most of the original cast all
06:31 confirmed to return. The statuses of Yvette Nicole Brown and the ever-busy Donald Glover are meanwhile
06:37 currently unknown, though hopefully they can at least be corralled for a cameo to decisively tie
06:41 their character arcs off. It's safe to say that, in finally delivering six seasons and a movie,
06:46 this will almost certainly be the final piece of the Community puzzle, a dew-eyed reunion which
06:51 hopefully provides fans with the closure they deserve around 15 years after it first began airing.
06:57 3. Mock the Week
06:59 Mock the Week is an undeniable institution of British TV comedy. A topical panel show which
07:04 launched in 2005 and, offering up a more irreverent riff on Have I Got News For You,
07:09 quickly became a major rating success for the BBC. Viewership has remained relatively consistent
07:14 throughout the show's run, yet this past summer it was revealed that Mock the Week was finally
07:18 coming to an end with its current 21st season. The BBC's official reasoning for the cancellation was
07:23 to create room for new shows, yet many industry commentators noted that the decision reflected a
07:28 general decline of panel shows over the last few years. For one, panel shows now have to compete
07:33 with the immediacy of social media, which is a losing battle given that they're typically taped
07:38 a day or two before airing. Mock the Week's formula also feels rather long in the tooth in
07:42 2022, and with the decline of shock comedy the series was known for during its peak, with Frankie
07:47 Boyle many years ago, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Nothing can ever take
07:52 away what a cultural monolith Mock the Week was for the British public, but it's been time to go
07:57 for quite a while. Number 2 - The Handmaid's Tale
08:00 The Handmaid's Tale was an undeniable cultural juggernaut during its first two seasons,
08:05 at once a massive critical and award success, and a watercooler show that everybody was talking
08:10 about. Yet the series, adapted from Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel, is also another
08:15 classic case of a hit TV show that just didn't know when to stop, as it became clear with each
08:20 passing season that the narrative was being artificially elongated past its natural end point.
08:25 Since season 3, The Handmaid's Tale has frustratingly spun its wheels time and time again,
08:30 enough that even Elizabeth Moss's outstanding performance can't entirely prop it up. And so,
08:35 there was a sense of relief when Hulu recently announced that the sixth season, due to air next
08:39 year, will be its last. This runs counter to showrunner Bruce Miller's original vision for a
08:44 ten-season run, which, given its current trajectory, would surely have been excruciating.
08:49 That won't be the absolute last we see of Atwood's universe on the small screen though,
08:52 as Miller is already prepping an adaptation of her recent sequel novel, The Testament.
08:57 Number 1 - The Good Fight
08:59 It's incredibly tough to predict how a spin-off series will do. They can either be Frasier and
09:04 arguably outperform their source material, or more commonly they struggle to retain the original fan
09:09 base, no matter how good they are. And so, when a spin-off to legal drama series The Good Wife
09:13 premiered in 2017, few expected it to get anywhere close to the original series' seven-season run.
09:19 But never underestimate the appeal of the Greg Christine Baranski, as The Good Fight
09:23 recently began airing its sixth and final season. Yet it's not unfair to say that the recent seasons
09:28 haven't quite matched the catty brilliance of the earlier ones, even if it's remained consistently
09:33 entertainingly absurd. Six seasons is an incredibly respectable run for a spin-off that could so
09:38 easily have fallen off a cliff after a year or two. Whilst many could watch Baranski play Diane
09:43 Lockhart forever, best to close things off before there's a more noticeable decline in quality.
09:49 And that's the list. Let us know what you thought of this video down in the comments below. Which of
09:53 these shows are you going to miss the most when it finally does end? And let us know of any other
09:58 shows that are currently ramping down. Make sure you like this video, share it with your friends,
10:02 subscribe and hit that notification bell. I've been Sy for What Culture and have a good week.