Today, I’m looking for what you think is the best cliffhanger on a TV series that was NOT the season finale of said show.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
Cliffhangers are a classic part of all serialized fiction, but with TV shows, the best cliffhangers almost always happen at the end of a season, to lead into the next season, so I thought it would be more fun to name the best cliffhangers that WEREN’T season finales.
My pick is the classic (perhaps the FINAL “classic”) ER moment from Season 6’s “Be Still My Heart” where Carter shows up in the ER on Valentine’s Day to see that his protege/quasi love interest (it was weird, and really not cool, all said and done) Lucy hadn’t finished dealing with a patient. He goes in to see what’s what and he doesn’t realized that the patient is behind him, dealing with a total psychotic break, and Carter is stabbed. That’s already a great cliffhanger, but as he falls to the ground (and the song “Battle Flag” by Lo Fidelity Allstars cranks on the screen, the soundtrack to the ER’s Valentine’s Day party), tries to get up and then collapses again, he looks over and sees that Lucy is also lying on the ground, with her throat sliced open, as well…
Rooooough.
Okay, that’s my pick, but there are obviously SO many options out there, so let me know your picks!
And feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at brian@popculturereferences.com!
How about the first part of the two episode fifth season premiere of “QUANTUM LEAP,” titled simply, “Lee Harvey Oswald”? Yes, it aired as a 2 hour episode when it debuted in Sept. 1992, but in syndication it is two episodes (as many “double length episodes” of TV shows are). Sam leaps into the titular assassin of JFK, not knowing whether he’s supposed to prevent the historic assassination, or uncover the “conspiracy” behind it. Even worse, Oswald’s mind is merging with Sam’s, to the point where he really thinks he’s Oswald at parts. The episode ends with him about to sell secrets to the Soviets! Its not a season finale, so it counts.
Cartoons are always good for a few mid-season cliffhangers, and I’ll pick one which stuck with me and likely has been ignored. FOX’S PETER PAN & THE PIRATES only had 1 season in 1990-1991 (back when FoxKids as a network was in its infancy), which was 65 episodes to hit the minimum for syndication. Episodes 37-38 were “The Ages of Pan,” and the first part has a pretty dire cliffhanger for the purposes of the show. Captain Hook has convinced Pan that he’ll never experience a full life if he continues to believe in magic and refuses to grow up, so Pan decides to call the villain’s bluff and wishes to grow up. Unfortunately, now Pan is aging at a fast rate, Tinkerbell is dying, Neverland is fading away, and Hook and the pirates are on the verge of capturing everyone! Eh, maybe you just had to be there as an eight year old.
Surprise into Innocence