10. Did Dave and Matthew ever join the rest of the WNYX crew in New Hampshire? (NewsRadio)
Though it's hardly the most gripping cliffhanger in TV history, the fifth season of the cult sitcom NewsRadio ended with WNYX station owner Jimmy James (played by the inimitable Stephen Root) buying a station in rural New Hampshire and trying to figure out which WNYX staffer he could bring along with him. Ultimately, he got everyone to go, with the exception of news director Dave and—in a surprise twist—the station's most annoying employee, Matthew. NewsRadio producer Paul Simms had planned to carry this storyline into season six, with the whole gang moving to New Hampshire and interacting with yokels, but NBC dropped the axe before that could happen, leaving poor Dave Foley in an empty office with Andy Dick for all eternity.
11. Will Mulder and Scully elude the government? (The X-Files)
Overextended storylines, cast changes, and unpredictable shifts in tone had eroded the quintessential '90s TV phenomenon by the time of its 2002 finale. Erstwhile fans tuning in for closure found their frustration renewed by the two-parter "The Truth," which largely focused on the imprisonment and kangaroo-court trail of a hallucinating Fox Mulder (David Duchovny, who sat out most of the final two seasons). The final sequence leaves Mulder and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) on the lam, and other major characters fates' unresolved. Whether a forthcoming movie sequel will tie up any of these loose ends remains to be seen.
12. Will Benson be elected governor? (Benson)
Has any TV character enjoyed such a steady rise in stature as Robert Guillaume's Benson DuBois? Introduced on Soap, he's first seen as a butler to Katherine Helmond. Then he spun off his own series, where he served as the head of household affairs for James Noble's Governor Gatling. In later seasons, he became budget director, then Lieutenant Governor of Noble's unnamed state. Finally, he wound up as a gubernatorial candidate, running against his boss. In the finale of the seventh season, the two old friends turned political rivals sit down together to watch the election results, which reveal that the winner is… who knows? The show never returned for an eighth season.
13. What was up with that nuke? (Sledge Hammer!)
Obviously many series with unresolved mysteries wrapped up with cliffhangers, but the cult-favorite series Sledge Hammer! sandwiched a cliffhanger into its center. Producer Alan Spencer didn't expect a second season for his send-up of tough cop shows, which starred David Rasche as a thick-skulled, gun-loving detective with an oft-deployed catchphrase: "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." So he ended the first season with a nuclear explosion, and the words "To be continued next season?" It was. Sort of. When Sledge Hammer! returned in the fall, it made no mention of the explosion, and carried on as if the previous season's finale had never happened.
[Note: We could only find a German-language version of this scene, but wanted to share its awesomeness anyway.]
14. What was the truth behind Harsh Realm? (Harsh Realm)
As The X-Files began its swirl down the toilet bowl, creator Chris Carter poured some of his mental energy into Harsh Realm, a clever series that failed to catch a fan base—it was yanked from the air after just three episodes. (A DVD set of nine complete episodes was eventually released.) The supposed plot: The U.S. military has created a virtual-reality simulator to see what a post-apocalyptic America would look like, but the simulation has been hijacked by Terry O'Quinn (yup, Locke from Lost), who plans to break out of the simulation and destroy the real world so that only Harsh Realm exists. Our hero, Thomas Hobbes (hello, direct historical allusions!), must kill him in order to save the world. But even a few minutes into the first episode, the series was already throwing out hints that everything Hobbes had been told was a lie, and that a much bigger conspiracy was at work, both in the real world and in Harsh Realm. Sadly, the show barely got enough episodes in to establish the questions, let alone the answers.
15. What was Shepherd Book's story? (Firefly)
Joss Whedon's aborted science-fiction series Firefly packed every significant character with unresolved issues and big reveals, but many of them at least got some screen time by the time the show was abruptly cancelled. Several of the remaining ones, particularly those dealing with Summer Glau's character, River Tam, were later resolved in the big-screen spin-off, Serenity. But fans are still grinding their teeth about Ron Glass' mild-mannered clergyman, who revealed offhandedly in the last episode of the series that he was neither mild-mannered nor a clergyman. So who was he, and what was his story? Just to twist the knife a little further, Serenity killed him off with his questions further unaddressed.
16. Will Mork and Mindy be forever stuck in time? (Mork And Mindy)
Mork And Mindy was never known for its tense storylines, which makes the decision to wind down its fourth season with the three-part episode "Gotta Run," in which Mork (Robin Williams) and Mindy (Pam Dawber) are menaced by future Murphy Brown star Joe Regalbuto, all the stranger. The season had previously focused mostly on Mork and Mindy's marriage and the arrival of their child Mearth, who, like all Orkans, ages backwards. (Which let Williams' hero Jonathan Winters play the role.) But after being threatened by Regalbuto, an outer-space enemy of the Orkans, and forced to go public with Mork's identity, Mork and Mindy are forced to abandon Mearth, and they subsequently get stuck traveling in time. In spite of the cliffhanger, the show finished off its season with one last, unrelated episode, then faded into memory.
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