A Statistical Analysis of the Ratings of the First and Last Episodes of TV Shows - Neatorama

How well did Glee end? Fans were clearly delighted. I didn't see it, but I did watch the finale of Newhart, which was ingenious.

Dexter rightfully deserves to be dead last in this list. Just hacking off the last 3 minutes alone would helped a lot.

Redditor ChallengeResponse compared IMDb ratings of the first and last episodes of famous television shows to see whether they were relatively good or bad, as well as compared finales with average ratings for the respective durations of each show. You can see all of the charts here.

Do any of these rating shifts surprise you?

-via Twisted Sifter

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It should have stopped after Season 5.

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I loved True Blood when it first came out. But after the 3rd (or 4th?) season I totally lost interest in it. It just sort of dispersed it's energy and it's story line to become a mishmash.
And even though Northern Exposure isn't on these lists it's last season was agony to watch, IMO. When the star wants to bolt (for bigger and better prospects, right Katy McCoy/Kathleen Nolan? right Tasha Yar/Denise Crosby?) then it can easily ruin the show that wasn't broke.

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No one else has a problem with the non-identification of axes, scale, units? Even the relative lengths of these "arrows" are worthless without indications of scale (as very small differentials can appear very large, and vice versa).

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I'm curious about Firefly since the actual last episode never aired. And the episodes that did air were shown out of order, which made the story very hard to follow for viewers. I'm certain the 14 total episodes, shown in order, would be on the top chart.

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I was surprised at M*A*S*H. Then I realized this is IMDb ratings, not Nielsen ratings. I think older shows suffered from that, since older folks probably don't register IMDb ratings that much. Watching a show from week to week over years is very different from syndicated reruns or binge-watching.

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