I have issues with bad ending in dramas in general. Honestly, when I watch a drama there is a very repetitive process in about 90% of all dramas I have watched: at first I am all enthusiastic, then I feel the drama starts to lose its breath and sometimes it gets draggy, repetitive, and usually the last few episodes are the least enjoyable to watch. It practically always feels very anticlimatic. Perhaps iit might be that nearing the end of drama I feel sad it ends (- eh, does it make sense? :-P) But usually the worst are the last episodes. It very often feels forced in the need of closure of story arcs and/or the turns the story takes to solve its own problems are just nonsensical/ shortcut/ or simply brutal. Like a writer is free to make a viewer feel like an idiot, because since it is last episode and the viewer is bound to watch it no matter how filled with nonsense it is.
But I recognize two sorts of bad endings:
- one I consider total narrative failure: like the writer just created a problem he is not able to solve and has to pull a complete turn, or the ending is left too open (not as an open ending per se, but missing vital closure to feel the story complete), the story loses its pace, its humor, its signature
- bad = unhappy ending: for me practically every unhappy ending is bad because I am real sucker for happy ones. I know, I know sometimes story itself demands it, but I actually try to avoid these kind of dramas. I even adopted the habit of reassuring myself of ending before even watching the drama: I prefer get a little bit of spoiler rather than feel drained from crying.
Up to now, there are very few dramas I consider they have satisfactory ending (happy/open/sad). Majority just fail miserably in that departement, notably
Hong Gil Dong - I was like - seriously? disaster
Iljimae - I get it: it was rushed, but still felt like letdown
The legend - now this is probably the most unsatisfying of them all, I wanted to spit the fire afterwards. Fortunatelly I read an alternative ending which was a little bit better.
Bu Bu Jing Xin - piling tragedies until it becomes mess
Da Ren Wu and Handsome siblings - my two first wuxias - the ending is just ridiculous (as are few last episodes as a whole)
Rooftop prince - oh, please
Padam Padam - the last episodes just got increasingly dull and boring I admit I even could not finish last 20 minutes because I am sooo not interested
and EVERY drama where they put "a few months/years of separation later" - I consider it the lamest way of prologing the longing or love or suffering or whatever. It is forced, mostly useless and the highest cliché.
Many endings get slow, dull, uniteresting, full of logical gaps or clichés and just plain filler. Even the happy ones: Arang and the Magistrate, Boys before flowers, Capital Scandal.... and basically most of my "completed" list.
Hm, these endings are the reason that even when I rewatch dramas I have to stop rewatching nearing the end.
But after all this hateful stuff I have to mention at least one super good ending/last 2 episodes: The Vampire Prosecutor (season 1) - not only it was brilliant, probably better than the rest of episodes altogether, but it was surprisingly so. I never expected the show to get to such level.
