15 Most-Watched Finales Of All Time

[caj]

Television finales tend to draw huge numbers. They can lure back in those who have stopped watching the show or even audiences who aren't fans. Some shows are so huge that their finale becomes an immense cultural event in and of itself. Some of these stand out above the rest, with staggering numbers of people watching.

https://www.cbr.com/most-watched-tv-...l-time/#cheers

Here are the top 15 most watched tv series finales

15. Gunsmoke 30.9 Million Viewers
14. Star Trek: The Next Generation 31 Million Viewers
13. Everybody Loves Raymond 32.9 Million Viewers
12. Dallas 33.3 Million Viewers
11. Frasier 33.7 Million Viewers
10. Home Improvement 35.5 Million Viewers
09. Family Ties 36.3 Million Viewers
08. All In The Family 40.2 Million Viewers
07. The Cosby Show 44.4 Million Viewers
06. Magnum, P.I. 50.7 Million Viewers
05. Friends 52.5 Million Viewers
04. Seinfeld 76.3 Million Viewers
03. The Fugitive 78 Million Viewers
02. Cheers 80.4 Million
01. M*A*S*H 105.9 Million

[krazijoe]

Television finales tend to draw huge numbers. They can lure back in those who have stopped watching the show or even audiences who aren't fans. Some shows are so huge that their finale becomes an immense cultural event in and of itself. Some of these stand out above the rest, with staggering numbers of people watching.

https://www.cbr.com/most-watched-tv-...l-time/#cheers

Here are the top 15 most watched tv series finales

15. Gunsmoke 30.9 Million Viewers
14. Star Trek: The Next Generation 31 Million Viewers
13. Everybody Loves Raymond 32.9 Million Viewers
12. Dallas 33.3 Million Viewers
11. Frasier 33.7 Million Viewers
10. Home Improvement 35.5 Million Viewers
09. Family Ties 36.3 Million Viewers
08. All In The Family 40.2 Million Viewers
07. The Cosby Show 44.4 Million Viewers
06. Magnum, P.I. 50.7 Million Viewers
05. Friends 52.5 Million Viewers
04. Seinfeld 76.3 Million Viewers
03. The Fugitive 78 Million Viewers
02. Cheers 80.4 Million
01. M*A*S*H 105.9 Million

I doubt anything will reach MASH and anything new will probably not even reach top 20...When you have hundreds of channels available I don't see how one show will get millions of people to sit down at once and watch the same show...

[K7P5V]

The majority won't agree, but a personal favorite will always be...

6Teen

[Jokerz79]

TNG is impressive given the series was syndicated.

[caj]

Concerning All In The Family, I'd be curious to know what the viewership was for the previous season. The show was supposed to end with Mike and Gloria moving to California. However, O'Connor and Stapleton were persuaded to do another season, with little Stephanie moving in with Archie and Edith.

I'm thinking the previous season ender had more viewers.

[Powerboy]

One interesting thing is that, when they were filming the last episode of Gunsmoke, they didn't know it was the last episode. The deal with the network was that it would go one more season. So there was no big wrap party since they all thought they'd be back in a couple of months. Then, it was canceled.

I'm not sure if that's true of any of the other finales.

[Powerboy]

Concerning All In The Family, I'd be curious to know what the viewership was for the previous season. The show was supposed to end with Mike and Gloria moving to California. However, O'Connor and Stapleton were persuaded to do another season, with little Stephanie moving in with Archie and Edith.

I'm thinking the previous season ender had more viewers.

I don't know the answer to that. I know Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner said they would have stayed had they known it was only going to go one more season.

I think most people considered Gloria and Mike leaving to be the true finale because that was the finale of the original premise: Gloria marries her ultra liberal boyfriend and they live with her ultra conservative father until he finishes college. Having them, instead, do one more season where Gloria and Mike have secretly gotten divorced was the kind of realism the show always did but ruined it for a lot of people.

Then, with Jean Stapleton leaving and "Archie Bunker's Place" having to kill Edith off, I think a lot of people just prefer the finale of the second to last season of AitF. Mike and Gloria go out on their own, the kind of ending yet beginning the audience would expect, and respect. THE END!

[Scott Taylor]

I've seen two of those finales - MASH and Seinfeld. MASH was way better.

Also I am impressed by the Fugitive, which was in the 1960s (?), and Raymond, which is the newest of the bunch I think. I assume Fugitive is the older series.

[Powerboy]

I've seen two of those finales - MASH and Seinfeld. MASH was way better.

Also I am impressed by the Fugitive, which was in the 1960s (?), and Raymond, which is the newest of the bunch I think. I assume Fugitive is the older series.

It was. It's impressive that "The Fugitive" got a true finale. The prevailing wisdom in those days that you never give a television series a true ending because, if you ever decided that canceling it was a mistake and you wanted to bring it back, you couldn't because you concluded the premise of the series.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...-one-armed-man

It seems the executive producer really had to fight to get an actual conclusion to the story.

[Jim Kelly]

I watched almost all of these shows at one time or another, but by the time they got to their last episodes I had long ago lost interest and stopped watching.

I most likely watched GUNSMOKE to the very end, because my Dad loved that show and I always liked to watch it with him, but I don't remember which episode was the last one. I better remember the last episode (well, the last season) of BONANZA.

I think I watched the last FRASIER, even though it wasn't my favourite thing to watch, but I watched it because it was on. FAMILY TIES for sure--but even that show had gone downhill by the last season. FRIENDS, yes, but it was like a funeral. SEINFELD definitely, but it was less the actual episode than the whole celebration around that.

THE FUGITIVE was on before we had cable and I believe it was on one of those channels we couldn't get with our antenna. We were aware of it, but it would've been impossible to see it.

[Jokerz79]

I don't know the answer to that. I know Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner said they would have stayed had they known it was only going to go one more season.

I think most people considered Gloria and Mike leaving to be the true finale because that was the finale of the original premise: Gloria marries her ultra liberal boyfriend and they live with her ultra conservative father until he finishes college. Having them, instead, do one more season where Gloria and Mike have secretly gotten divorced was the kind of realism the show always did but ruined it for a lot of people.

Then, with Jean Stapleton leaving and "Archie Bunker's Place" having to kill Edith off, I think a lot of people just prefer the finale of the second to last season of AitF. Mike and Gloria go out on their own, the kind of ending yet beginning the audience would expect, and respect. THE END!

I love Stephanie's Conversion it's the best episode that Highlights the evolution of Archie also the final scene between Archie and Edith in the last episode where he tells what she means to him it's one of the best scenes in the series. I guess since I liked Edith and Archie more than Mike and Gloria, I like the final season.

[Captain Smith]

Watched the Fugitive in a hotel bar and won a bet on the outcome.

[Powerboy]

I watched almost all of these shows at one time or another, but by the time they got to their last episodes I had long ago lost interest and stopped watching.

I most likely watched GUNSMOKE to the very end, because my Dad loved that show and I always liked to watch it with him, but I don't remember which episode was the last one. I better remember the last episode (well, the last season) of BONANZA.

I think I watched the last FRASIER, even though it wasn't my favourite thing to watch, but I watched it because it was on. FAMILY TIES for sure--but even that show had gone downhill by the last season. FRIENDS, yes, but it was like a funeral. SEINFELD definitely, but it was less the actual episode than the whole celebration around that.

THE FUGITIVE was on before we had cable and I believe it was on one of those channels we couldn't get with our antenna. We were aware of it, but it would've been impossible to see it.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertain...sode-end.html/

That was the last episode of Gunsmoke, a run of the mill episode with Festus as the main character.

[Scott Taylor]

Watched the Fugitive in a hotel bar and won a bet on the outcome.

Whoa, that's really cool. It was truly a landmark series of its time, inspired maybe by literature such as Les Miserables. There were a bunch of knock-offs of the Fugitive made later, most of which sucked. But the best and smartest of which was the Hulk series with Lou Ferrigno. Ditko and Lee's Hulk was basically the running man in the original six comics, so it made sense.

In that same 1960s time period the Prisoner was another, more obscure, landmark series. Entirely different concept from Fugitive but crazy out there even for the experimental 1960s.

[Jim Kelly]

And there was RUN FOR YOUR LIFE--created by Roy Huggins who created THE FUGITIVE--Ben Gazzara's character is given 9 to 18 months to live, from his doctor, so he goes on the run to live the most he can in the time he has left. He lived longer than the doctor predicted, for three seasons, from 1965 to 1968.

There was also Deadman, which debuted in the comics around the same time that THE FUGITIVE ended. Pretty much the same idea as THE FUGITIVE, except Boston Brand is trying to find the man with the hook that killed him.