21 Hit TV Shows That Almost Had Wildly Different Endings

We still can't believe Hannah Montana could have ended with it "only being a dream."

Liezel

• Published in Film & TV
• May 30, 2022

g We got to say, writing endings for TV shows must be one of the hardest jobs for TV show writers. After all those seasons of crafting out elaborate stories for each of the characters in the show and making sure that audiences remain interested, there's just such a huge pressure with fleshing out the ending.

Everyone is just expecting so much out of it and, of course, everyone wants everything to be right except everyone has different versions of what's right.

There are TV shows out there that succeed in achieving absolutely perfect endings. All the questions are answered, the character arcs are nicely and properly done, and the story is wrapped up like a nice little Christmas present.

Then, of course, there are those whose endings leave a little something to be desired. They can feel rushed, they can feel unsatisfying, and they might not even make sense.

More often than not, those kinds of endings leave people begging for an alternate ending. Some people even craft their own endings and release them to the world through fan fiction or short stories on social media just to get themselves some peace of mind.

As it turns out though, some of the biggest TV shows out there did almost end completely differently, some for better and some for worse. Here are 21 shows which might have had completely different endings that would have changed fans' perceptions of them.

1. Squid Game

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, creator and director Hwang Dong-Hyuk said that they actually "wrestled between" the two endings.

"We constantly asked ourselves, is it really right for Gi-hun to make the decision to leave and go see his family, to pursue his own happiness? Is that the right way for us to really propose the question or the message that we wanted to convey through the series?" he said.

"We came to the conclusion that the question that we wanted to propose cannot be done if he left on the plane. The question that we want to answer — why has the world come to what it is now? — can only be answered or can only be proposed if Gi-hun turned back and walked towards the camera. So that's how we ended up with that ending in the finale," he added.

2. Pretty Little Liars

The ending for Pretty Little Liars wasn't as gruesome as the murders in the show but it actually almost ended up on a darker note. Alex, Spencer's evil twin, was supposed to get away with her crimes.

Toby also would have been the only person suspicious of her.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Troian Bellisario (who played Spencer) explained, "I think that ultimately would’ve left things too much up in the air and we would've been worried for Spencer. So it was really fun because this way, Spencer got a happy ending, and all the girls got a happy ending, and Alex got to be with her family — which is great, but also in a little bit of a tricky situation."

3. Killing Eve

For the finale of Killing Eve, Villanelle and Eve finally shared a long-awaited moment of intimacy. Sadly, the moment for them was cut short when Villanelle was shot dead a few moments later.

Apparently, before the writers settled on this ending, they played around with several other endings. As showrunner Laura Neal explained, "We discussed lots of different versions of the ending. ... We talked about both of them living. We talked about both of them dying. We talked about a version where Villanelle lived and Eve dies, and we spoke about all of those versions quite seriously. ... There was a version that was written where Villanelle more overtly saves Eve, sacrifices herself for Eve. That was a version that existed in the script stage for a while, and then we moved away from that because it didn't feel quite true to Villanelle's innate self-interest."

4. Gossip Girl

At Vulture Festival in 2019, executive producer and writer Joshua Safran revealed that he actually wanted Nate to be Gossip Girl. As to why Dan ended up in the position itself, well, no one really knows.

"I like to joke that Dan was Gossip Girl because I had left the show by then," Joshua said. "Dan was not my intended Gossip Girl, so honestly you'd have to ask someone else."

5. Russian Doll

"I guess the thing we had pitched was similar to a twist in Maniac," co-creator Leslye Headland said in an interview with IndieWire. "And they were like, ‘We are very sad to tell you this, obviously no one knows this except the people that are working on Maniac, which happens to be us, this feels like it’s a little too close to that.’ That was a hard day."

At the end of the day, however, Leslye was still happy with the ending they went with. "We worked really hard to figure this out, but what was amazing is the ending that we came up with, was, in my opinion, a gajillion times better than the ending we had come up with before,” she said. “It was much harder and more challenging, and it was more of a nail-biter, in the sense that [it was a risk] if this doesn’t get pulled off correctly."

6. How I Met Your Mother

For those who wanted a happier ending for Tracy in the show, they would have gotten it if the creators went with the alternate ending they shot.

In that ending, Tracy doesn't die. She and Ted actually end up together.

The writers were also torn between the two endings. For those who want to see that ending, here's a look at it.

7. Hannah Montana

Here's that ending:

8. Seinfeld

In the controversial show finale, the gang goes to prison.

They were found guilty of violating a "Good Samaritan Law." More specifically, it was when they chose to laugh and mock a man who was getting carjacked at gunpoint rather than help him or report the crime.

In the alternate ending found on the DVD set though, they're actually found not guilty.

There were also other ideas tossed around which included one of the group sitting in a coffee shop with nothing to say to each other. Jerry then says, "That's it" and they all get up to leave and go their separate ways.

They almost didn't have a finale as well.

9. Everwood

Everwood had two possible endings.

In the one that was on the final show, Ephram and Amy reunited on the Ferris wheel. In the other version, Ephram was on his way to the Ferris wheel when he gets a call from his ex, Madison.

"Amy was going to have some serious egg on her face at the Ferris wheel,” Executive Producer Rina Mimoun said during a 2017 panel for the Television Critics Association.

Here is the ending that aired though:

10. Greek

The show ended up with Casey and Cappie driving off to Washington to attend law school. However, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Sean Smith revealed that they filmed a flash-forward sequence for an alternate ending.

"The flash-forward was to...Rusty, Rebecca, Dale, and Calvin’s graduation," Sean explained. "We also reveal, at the end, that it was Cappie’s graduation as well. ... It was our undergrads — who were then graduates — two years later from when we left off at spring break with Casey coming back from GW to see Rusty’s graduation and then being reunited with Cappie, and them kind of having a drink of hope at Dobbler’s at the end to show that as a game-changer for them. And Ashleigh was back from New York and Evan’s married."

11. Friends

12. Lost

In the original ending of the show, there was supposed to be this big volcano sequence. The creators originally wanted the series to end with Jack and Smokey incarnate fighting over the island's fate on top of Mount Doom, a woken dormant volcano.

13. Cruel Summer

That shocking final minute of the show where we see Jeanette hear Kate calling for help in the basement and then smile and turn away almost didn't happen.

14. Dexter

Clyde explained in an interview with E! News: "In the very last scene of the series, Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, 'Oh, it was a dream.' And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, 'No, it's not a dream.' Dexter's opening his eyes and he's on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They're just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery. In the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed — including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible killing, Doakes who he's arguably responsible for, Rita, who he's arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there."

"That's what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter," Clyde continued. "That everything we've seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter's execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion."

15. The Haunting of Hill House

The show ended up on a pretty happy note. Steven's wife is revealed to be pregnant and everyone is more or less at peace.

The show originally would have went with a much darker direction though.

16. Dawson's Creek

The creators actually first planned for Joey to end up with Dawson. Halfway through the show though, they thankfully changed their minds and had Joey and Pacey as endgame.

17. Schitt's Creek

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Annie Murphy who played Alexis revealed that she was told the show was going to end with a double wedding between Alexis and Ted and David and Patrick. When things were changed, Annie was so upset that she actually threatened to quit the show.

Dustin Mulligan who played Ted also said, "Annie and I were, to be honest, we were quite looking forward to that [double wedding]. It is a very rare thing where you have not only a supporting scene partner who's good at what they do but also that you genuinely like. I've been doing this like 13 or 14 years, and it's rare that that happens. Usually, everyone's faking it, that's chemistry, but Annie and I, it was real."

18. Sex and the City

Show creator Darren Star was apparently not happy with the show's ending. If he had it his way, he wouldn't have had Carrie and Big end up together.

"I think the show ultimately betrayed what it was about, which was that women don’t ultimately find happiness from marriage," he said. "Not that they can’t. But the show initially was going off script from the romantic comedies that had come before it. That’s what had made women so attached.”

If you also watched And Just Like That, Carrie and Big don't really get their happy ending as well after all.

19. The Vampire Diaries

Everything changed when Nina Dobrev left the show after season 6.

"I felt like we had to make a commitment to seeing Damon and Elena through to the end," Julie said. "If Nina had never left, I would’ve loved to have been able to see if Stefan and Elena could’ve found their way back to each other. I don’t know if they could have, but had that departure not been a part of it, the long game would’ve been to see if we could bring the love triangle back around before the series ended and really leave a choice."

"But her departure sealed the romantic contract between Damon and Elena," Julie continued. "In that moment, to me, the show ceased to be about a love triangle and became a show about the power of these brothers and their love for each other. And so there was no way in hell I was killing both of them and leaving neither of them with a happy ending. It just was never going to happen.”

20. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

The ending of the show where Rory tells Lorelai that she's pregnant (presumably with Logan's baby) was actually supposed to happen in season 7 of the original Gilmore Girls. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino who left Gilmore Girls after season 6 and came back for A Year in the Life always knew that that was going to be the series' final words though.

"Originally it was going to be that [Rory] was 22, just getting out of college and heading off to get a master’s somewhere — Oxford or whatever those smart people do," she said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "It’s interesting because we went in breaking these [episodes] on their own merit, feeling like if the last four words work, great. If they don’t, then we don’t use them. And interestingly enough, her being the same age as Lorelai [when the show began] turned out to be much better."

21. Breaking Bad

We'll leave you with this scene:

A lot of these alternate endings are actually pretty surprising and we wish some of them did happen instead of the original ones. The only consolation we have for those is that these endings do exist.

Even though they didn't all make it to the final versions of the show, at least they exist and that's enough to give us some peace of mind. Which alternate endings surprised you the most?

Liezel