WARNING! WARNING! HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD!
I want to do something different with this post. I want to talk about something that’s been my mind for a little bit. Cliffhangers. No, not Cliffhanger, the movie. It’s an awesome movie, though. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. No, I’m talking about cliffhangers. What is a cliffhanger? A cliffhanger is a narrative tool that is used to leave the audience in suspense at the end of a story. It’s a technique that’s been used in books, movies, videogames, and comics. Anything that tells a narrative or story can use a cliffhanger as its conclusion. The general purpose of a cliffhanger, as I said is to leave the audience in suspense, wanting more. There are a number of reasons why someone would use a cliffhanger. For instance, in television or film, someone could use a cliffhanger to split a story into multiple parts, the idea being to conclude the full story at some point. A cliffhanger can be a very risky proposition, though. There are good ways to use them, and there are bad ways. The good ones will have audiences thirsting for more. That’s what writers want. The bad ones will end up pissing people. That’s NOT what writers want. I’m going to go over some examples of cliffhangers that are good, and some that are bad. This is not one of my Best and Worst posts. This is a little different. Let’s begin:
First up is one of the greatest cliffhangers in television history: Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Best of Both Worlds” episode. In this episode, Captain Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg, a species of cybernetic organisms hell-bent on assimilating everything in the galaxy. So, why is this episode so important? First off, this episode is used to cap off Season 3 of the show, with Part II being Season 4’s premiere episode. Narratively, this is huge for Star Trek. We have a starship captain that has been fairly upstanding, resolute, and unyielding. Then he has everything stripped away from him when he’s assimilated, including his individuality. At the end of Part I, Riker is forced to use a weapon against the Borg, even if it means the death of Picard, now known as Locutus. As soon as Riker says “fire,” the episode cuts to black and “To Be Continued” appears. The crew had failed to rescue the captain before his assimilation, and now it seems that he might end up being killed. You want to talk about leaving people hanging, this was the episode to do it. Part II sees Locutus anticipating this attack because Picard had been briefed on it. So, Commander Riker is promoted to Captain and he has to come up with a plan to rescue Picard and the Federation. This episode of Star Trek was important for a number of reason. First, it made Picard more vulnerable, and the effects of this episode can be felt throughout the entire franchise including Deep Space Nine and Voyager. It gave audiences an entire summer of thinking about what was going to happen. The interesting thing is, this episode could’ve only happened between Seasons 3 and 4. Season 1 was still on shaky ground with the show trying to find its footing. It would’ve been too much of a risk, as audiences hadn’t really connected with these characters yet. This is how you end a season. It’s not the only cliffhanger that The Next Generation would use, but it’s the best one.
Now, let’s talk about a BAD Star Trek cliffhanger: The season finale of Strange New Worlds. I’ve never been a huge fan of Nu-Trek. This includes the new movies, Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds. I’m focusing on the final episode of Season 1 of SNW because it’s bad in a number of ways. I enjoyed the season for the most part, but the final episode was essentially a rip-off of the original series’ “Balance of Terror.” “Balance of Terror” followed Kirk’s Enterprise into a cat and mouse chase with a Romulan war bird. It’s one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek. SNW rips it off by having Captain Pike in place of Kirk for most of the story as a result of a vision. After Pike snaps back to reality, his first officer, Una, is arrested by his girlfriend, a captain of another ship. The season then ends with Pike breaking the fourth wall. The fourth wall is where the audience sits, and the general rule of thumb is that actors should never look into the camera. Pike does this here, and that’s where it ends for Season 1. Whatever issues I had with the episode in general, the cliffhanger part of it was completely unnecessary as far as the narrative goes. It’s nothing more than an excuse to shock people. It’s bad story-telling. I guess the writers didn’t learn and ended Season 2 almost the same way with Pike staring at the audience.
Using cliffhangers essentially requires surgical precision. You have to know where to end the episode and how to end it. Same thing with movies. In fact, the reason why I wanted to talk about this particular subject matter was Fast X, the latest entry into the Fast and Furious franchise. While the franchise has definitely gotten sillier over the years, and Fast X is no exception, the decision to end Fast X with a cliffhanger was ballsy, especially when you consider that the next movie won’t show up until 2025 at the earliest. However, Fast X had a really good cliffhanger. Vin Diesel’s character is being hunted by Jason Momoa’s Dante, the son of an earlier film’s villain. Dominic Toretto, not only sees his woman, Letty get arrested in Rome, he’s attacked on all sides from a government agency as well as Dante’s crew. Dom loses his brother, while an ally turned traitor shoots down a plane carrying his friends, with Dom and his son driving off the top of a damn, only for Dante to detonate charges that would blow the damn. The scene cuts, and we see Letty and Charlize Theron’s Cypher in Antarctica about to hitch a ride on a submarine with a cameo from Gal Gadot, who played a character that seemed to have died in Fast 6. I actually liked that. Look, even though we know that Dom and most of his crew will survive for the next movie, it’s very unusual to see the character get taken down a few notches like this. Everybody loves a comeback story.
Certain stories, movies, and shows lend themselves to having an easier time handling cliffhangers than others. Serialized shows like Game of Thrones is notorious for having cliffhangers, because of the stories that are being told. You can’t tell those stories in a single episode, sometimes it takes an entire season, but it works for those shows, because there’s an overall narrative at play. Star Trek: The Next Generation didn’t need to do that because it episodic, as in every episode was a complete story in and of itself. It was unusual for a multi-episode story to happen. But it did. But it happened organically and it made logical sense for the stories to be handled that way. You really can’t do cliffhangers in video games because gamers would feel that the game would feel like an incomplete experience, and it would be. If you’re paying 60-70 bucks for a game, you want a complete narrative. You can leave the ending open for a sequel, but you don’t end it with gamers left hanging.
Let’s talk about Lord of the Rings for a bit. The first two movies ended with cliffhangers that didn’t really feel like cliffhangers. Why? It’s simple, each film had a satisfying conclusion even though you knew there was more to the story. At the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, the fellowship breaks when Boromir’s killed, Frodo and Sam head to Mordor on their own, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli chase after the orcs that captured Merry and Pippin. Anybody who has read the books knows what happens, but it still feels incredibly satisfying that each group heads off on their own. While each film in the trilogy is a chapter in a long-running story, each film feels complete, and that’s why those endings work. The Hobbit on the other hand…well, let’s just say one of those cliffhangers didn’t need to happen, because The Hobbit didn’t need to be split into three movies. Two movies would’ve been plenty. Horror movies, and slashers in particular, have a tendency to use the cliffhanger as a “GOTCHA!” kind of jump scare. Meh…It’s amusing at times, but most of the time it’s unnecessary. Saw is a franchise that relies heavily on a cliffhanger ending, but that’s a franchise that also relies on a lot of coincidental moments to try and connect each movie.
The cliffhanger can be a great narrative tool if it’s used properly and sparingly. If you use it too much, people will learn to expect it and just shrug it off or get pissed and not bother watching the show/movie anymore. It works best when it’s not actually expected, but feels organic and not forced. I keep going back to “Best of Both Worlds” for that, because it’s written incredibly well. Good cliffhangers need really good writers who understand the different methods that can help keep the audience engaged with the story and characters. Otherwise, the movie/tv show will simply use it to artificially extend a show’s life, and that’s incredibly dishonest, and most people can pick up on that right away.