The Best SF Cliffhangers

The final scene of Ashes To Ashes Season Two has certainly set the SFX forum buzzing. It was a classic TV cliffhanger, destined to be discussed for many years to come. To celebrate, here are 15 of SF TV’s greatest cliffhangers as chosen by members of the SFX forum, and adjudicated by us. Part of that adjudication was to limit each show to one cliffhanger each, otherwise Angel and Doctor Who would have nabbed the majority of the entries. So here they are, in no particular order, kicking off with that newcomer...

ASHES TO ASHES
Season Two, Episode Eight

A cliffhanger so good, so weird, so unexpected, it's almost a shame that there'll be a series three, because it would have been fun spending the next few decades listening to everybody arguing about what it actually meant. Alex wakes up from her coma, apparently back in the present, having escapes her apparently hallucinatory life as a copper in the early '80s. But just when she thinks things are back to normal, she hears the voice of her apparently imaginary boss, Gene Hunt. And there he is, his face on every monitor screen around her, telling her that she’s actually in a coma in 1982… and that he’s being blamed for shooting her. And thus, everything we thought we knew about the show is turned on its head. If the concept weren’t enough to freak you out, the fractured images of Gene on multiple screens is a touch of surreal brilliance.

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