{"id":400253,"date":"2026-04-19T14:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/400253\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T14:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:41:08","slug":"40-years-ago-today-an-iconic-sitcom-ended-on-a-cliffhanger-after-158-episodes-but-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/400253\/","title":{"rendered":"40 Years Ago Today, An Iconic Sitcom Ended on a Cliffhanger After 158 Episodes (But What Happened?!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

TV shows ending on cliffhangers but ultimately getting cancelled isn\u2019t common, but it does happen. Sliders notoriously ended in such a way<\/a> back in the \u201990s, with Alf suffering a similar ending as well, though perhaps a much more traumatic one<\/a>. The iconic Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff, Angel, also ended on a cliffhanger, which was wrapped up thanks to comics. This phenomenon isn\u2019t limited to just classic shows from decades ago, as the age of streaming has resulted in quicker cancellations for shows, even if the story isn\u2019t wrapped up at all. On Netflix alone, there are multiple unresolved cliffhangers for cancelled shows, including Archive 81, Glow, I Am Not Okay With This, Santa Clarita Diet, and The OA, just to name a few.<\/p>\n

More rare than a TV show ending on a cliffhanger, though, is a sitcom series ending on a cliffhanger. Usually, these types of shows are cheap to produce and have a clear plan of what their future looks like and can end on their own terms, like Seinfeld, Cheers, and The Big Bang Theory. Forty years ago today, though, on April 19, 1986, a major sitcom landed in this rare camp when the series Benson ended its seventh season, which wrapped up on a cliffhanger ending. Unfortunately, the series was cancelled before the answer could come, leaving viewers\u2019 jaws on the floor that the show could just end without a clear answer. The good news is, there is an answer for what was being planned.<\/p>\n

40 Years Ago Today, Benson\u2019s Series Finale Ended on a Cliffhanger<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by ABC Photo Archives\/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A spinoff of the series Soap, Benson starred Robert Guillaume in the titular role of Benson DuBois, who held the job of head of the household for the state Governor. Throughout the series, his time was spent either defusing conflicts inside the house itself, but at times he was roped into work for the Governor himself (James Noble\u2019s Eugene X. Gatling, a widower with a teenage daughter). The series would frequently bounce around with episodes that were entirely about the political process itself (like one where the state budget director dies unexpectedly) to others that were a little more classic sitcom (Benson helps a street gang stay out of trouble), but also some stories that were totally off the wall (the governor believes Benson was abducted by a UFO while they were out golfing).<\/p>\n

By the final season of the series, though, Benson has moved up in the world and been elected Lieutenant Governor, working alongside his former boss. As the last episodes of the series approached, Benson ran for the top job, with everyone assuming that Gatling couldn\u2019t run for the position since he\u2019s term-limited. In a fluke, though, it\u2019s revealed that if Gatling runs as a third-party candidate, he can seek re-election once again. After deciding to run, Gatling and Benson are put at odds, testing their friendship after years as they both seek the Governorship. <\/p>\n

In the series finale, though, the pair are able to put their differences aside and await the results of the election still friends. The trouble, of course, is that despite the episode itself being titled \u201cAnd the Winner Is\u2026,\u201d the winner is not actually announced. Benson\u2019s seventh season ended just as they were preparing to reveal who had won the election, with the series being cancelled before the answer could be confirmed.<\/p>\n

Benson Had a Plan for What Came Next<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

According to Benson showrunner Bob Fraser, the decision to end Season 7 on a cliffhanger was one made by the network, ABC. Fraser went on to confirm in a 2007 interview with TV Series Finale<\/a> that they had a plan for what would come next in the series. As he revealed, Governor Gatling would have been re-elected, but only by a slim margin of victory, but a twist was baked in as the junior senator of the unnamed state where they lived would die in office, with Gatling appointing Benson to finish the term. From there, Fraser revealed a series of other accidents and mishaps would break down the line of succession, ultimately resulting in Benson becoming President of the United States (The outlet in question has no actual quotes from Fraser from this interview, though, so it\u2019s unclear how accurate it is).<\/p>\n

In 2008, Gary Brown, who directed the series finale of Benson, offered a different perspective about what was set to happen with the series. Speaking with Salon<\/a>, Brown revealed that three different endings were actually shot for the Season 7 finale of Benson, one where Benson won the election, another where Gatling won re-election, and a third, which he called \u201cwhimsical\u201d and which he claims they were considering using, where the pair tied.<\/p>\n

Brown revealed that no matter what ending happened, he believed that Benson would have become the governor eventually (contradicting the Fraser interview about the character\u2019s path forward), knowing that Robert Guillaume \u201cwanted\u201d that for the character. He went on to reveal that Benson, like so many other shows, was moved around on the schedule across each season, but the audience always arrived no matter when Benson aired; he added, \u201cThe never-fulfilled resolution to the cliffhanger \u2014 which we\u2019ll never know for sure but which Brown believes would have resulted in the culmination of a seasons-long journey \u2014 might well have put gas in the tank for seasons to come\u2026It would have given the show new life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, like so many other shows, Benson was cancelled because it had reached a point where production costs were very high, something that would have only continued as the show carried on even longer, and it happened forty years ago today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TV shows ending on cliffhangers but ultimately getting cancelled isn\u2019t common, but it does happen. Sliders notoriously ended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,53235,15407,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-400253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-regular-feature","12":"tag-sitcoms","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}