Left Hanging / Western Animation

• In the All Grown Up! episode "Izzy or Isn't He?", the plot ends without anyone mentioning the result of the school election that formed a major part of this episode's storyline.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender itself never resolves the question of what happened to Zuko's mom. The Sequel Series to ATLA, The Legend of Korra, features a character asking the phrase above verbatim in the first episode, only for the adressee to be cut off before she can answer. The question would finally be answered in the comics' The Search storyline, to mixed response.
• The second season of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has a subplot regarding the return of Surtur, the fire demon, and the possibility that he will cause Ragnarok to destroy the Earth. In two episodes, Surtur wipes out the dwarves of Nidavellir, enslaves Amora the Enchantress, and slaughters Korbinite aliens. A bonus episode on one of the show's DVDs features copious buildup to a confrontation between the Avengers and Surtur. However, since the show didn't receive a third season, this confrontation ends up never taking place.
  • There were actually several plot threads that were never fully resolved thanks to the canceling of the show. Surtur was just the most noticeable one. Others include Captain America's arrangement with Hela, Maria Hill leading the heroes toward civil war, Hawkeye's love life, the fate of Princess Ravana, Hulk's eventual return to the team, capturing the last of the breakout villains, Stark Industries' woes, Wonder Man's possible return, Ronan the Accuser escaping custody, and Hank Pym's psychological issues.
• Batman Beyond doesn't leave too many outstanding plot points, other than "who does Terry end up with?", which is fairly peripheral, and "why does Terry look like Bruce?", which wasn't brought up in the series but did get noticed by fans. However, it also doesn't have any kind of meaningful finale; it just kinda... stops, with its last episode being a crossover with red-headed stepchild of the DCAU The Zeta Project. Hell, the third-last and second-last introduce a new cast of characters in the form of a future Justice League, some of whom definitely feel like they were waiting to get more development. Reportedly, the show's cancellation had some knock-on effects on later DCAU projects; all five season finales of Justice League were written with the idea in mind that they could potentially serve as a series finale, and one of them is a Fully Absorbed Finale for Batman Beyond itself.
• The final two-part BattleTech (1994) episode pits the main characters against the bad guys in a Trial of Possession for the main characters' home planet of Sommerset. When it finally breaks down to a hand-to-hand fight between the bad guy and the hero, it ends with the hero winning the planet... but not the people, including the hero's brother, who were all spirited off the planet. The series was not continued. Subsequent material published for the game revealed that the animated series was a Show Within a Show that was (in-universe) Very Loosely Based on a True Story and was canceled due to poor ratings.
• The French and Vietnamese dubs of Beast Wars both ended after the second series, leaving fans with a massive, unresolved cliffhanger.
  • One could argue that the series itself ended up like this. While the main plotline was largely resolved, the nature of the Vok aliens (who instigated some of the series' biggest episodes) and the origins of Tarantulas were not explained. This was a result of the series being rushed to completion so that the sequel Beast Machines could begin. Simon Furman eventually revealed that the season 3 finale was originally to be a 3-parter that would end on a cliffhanger, leading in to season 4 - this Season Finale was to explain Taratulas' origins in detail and his motivations for hating the Vok (and would likely have resulted in Tigerhawk gaining a bigger role as well instead of being thrown conveniently under the bridge). The plot was rushed, and unexplained aspects of the story were left to the comic continuation.
• Beware the Batman was not picked up for another season, so it left behind some loose plot threads, such as Batman's allies coming together as the Outsiders, Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face, and Anarky still playing his twisted games.
• Blazing Team was cancelled during its second season. The show was supposed to have 52 episodes, but ended up with 42. The show ends with Lao-Shi being rescued and Vikki going into the realm. The show left plot points unresolved.
• Capertown Cops was cancelled after only 17 episodes, with Mayor Kickback never being exposed as Mr. X.
• The original run of Clone High ends with a series of dramatic events, including Joan sleeping with JFK, Scudworth being apprehended by the Board of Shadowy Figures, and all the clones being frozen. The show was cancelled and we never learned what became of anyone.
• The British adult claymation series Crapston Villas ended on a cliffhanger as a bus was about to crash into the titular apartment building.
• Detentionaire ended on a cliffhanger, with most of the main characters still in Coral Grove after defeating the main villains, one of the (supposedly dead) council members apparently about to attack the school with an army of lizard men, and a number of questions left unanswered (how involved with Coral Grove were Biffy's parents and Jenny's aunt, for example?) The creators did have plans for a fifth season; however, poor viewership in the US led to it getting cancelled.
• Duckman's last episode, "Four Weddings Inconceivable", ends with the titular character about to remarry — until his first wife, who has been presumed dead for the entire series, shows up.
  Writer Michael Markowitz: We never formally planned Part II... and I'll never tell what I personally had in mind. I'm hoping to leave it to my heirs, for the inevitable day when Duckman is revived by future generations. Ah, the Spandex suits they'll wear, the hovercrafts they'll fly!
• DuckTales (2017) ended after three seasons and did get a Grand Finale, but nonetheless left one plot thread unsolved: The Stinger at the very end of "The Duck Night Returns!", where Jim Starling turns into Negaduck. Said scene was never acknowledged since then, not even in the Darkwing Duck-centric hour-long episode "Let's Get Dangerous!", and he could still be lurking around the sewers to this day...
• The Fatherhood episode "The Birds, Bees, and Bindlebeep" ends with Norma announcing to Arthur that she is pregnant with their fourth child and Arthur freaking out about it, but because of the show's abrupt cancellation, the story was never concluded and the child's gender was never revealed.
• Final Space had the misfortunate of getting Cut Short, resulting in the series ending with none of its then on-going plot threads having any sort of resolution. Ash betraying Team Squad, Avocato and Little Cato's relationship becoming completely strained, Mooncake being drained of his powers again and Invictus getting freed from the eponymous dimension are just examples from the last episode alone. Word of God also confirmed that plot threads like Avocato's Ventrexian heritage, Mooncake's fate, and what's the connection between Ash and Invictus were potentially going to be developed in later seasons. Fortunately, the storyline will soon be resolved in a graphic novel titled Final Space: The Final Chapter, which will properly conclude the series.
• Gary and Mike ended with the duo framed for murder and cornered on a incomplete bridge by the police, Gary's father (whose looking to punish him for destroying the SUV, though that was Mike's doing) and Officer Dick (whose after Mike for sleeping with his daughter and costing him a promotion). With nothing left to lose, the duo decide to recreate Thelma & Louise and drive off the bridge. The screen whitens as they do so and were given a "To Be Continued" but the show was cancelled after that.
• Godzilla: The Series was only picked up for forty episodes, given more was unlikely to be made, some episodes were left open: Cameron Winter gets away with his crimes and never faces justice, we never learned what became of Dr. Perlon when he walked into the portal, Nick suspects the Tachyons might return, the Fire Monster has been accidentally released by a Shark, Colonel Tarrington then asks when Third Wave goes into production.
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series ends with Aya coming to her senses when she accidentally hurts Razer, then reversing her attempt to rewrite the universe and destroying the remaining Manhunter army with a virus that also affects herself, then she disappears into the aether. At the end, Razer is convinced that she's still out there somewhere in space and goes off to find her, his hope for doing so causing a Blue Lantern ring to follow him.
  • Razer later makes an appearance in the Young Justice (2010) episode "On The Edge of Fate's Razor", where he and Kilowog return, voiced by their respective actors and directly referencing the events of the Green Lanter Animated series. Razer has become a full-fledged Blue Lantern and continued his search for Aya until his hope has nearly depleted, leaving him lost in space. Following the events of the episode, Razer now wields both his red and blue power rings, his anger and his hope inspiring him to return to his search once more.
• A recurring theme in shows produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe.
  • The Amazing World of Gumball ended with the entire world of Elmore beginning to be Ret-Gone by the Void, with Rob as its first victim.
  • Elliott from Earth ended with the titular character left behind at the Centrium while his mother and Best Friend are accidentally sent off to another galaxy.
  • The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe ended with the titular character and his squire finding Eagle Mountain.
• Hey Arnold! originally ended on this note, as the final episode ("The Journal") had Arnold find a map of the San Lorenzo jungle that could lead him to his lost parents' whereabouts. This was intended to be the lead-in to a second Hey Arnold! film, known as "The Jungle Movie", which would've resolved this (as well as Helga's long-standing crush on Arnold) but the low earnings of that first film led to Nickelodeon scrapping it and the show ending in 2002. Subverted over a decade later when, as part of slate of throwback TV movies for older Nicktoons, The Jungle Movie was announced as one of them thanks to years of fan demand. The film would air in 2017 and resolve the above plot points, with the door also left open for a potential continuation.
• Infinity Train ended with four seasons out of a planned eight due to higher-ups thinking the show was "too mature" for its target audience. Despite being a Genre Anthology, the cancellation left the overarching storyline involving Amelia escaping the train unresolved and the whereabouts of Hazel unknown. Word of God also confirmed that the fifth season, which had already been written by the time of cancellation, would have explored the former's backstory in-depth, as well as explain many lingering questions about the true Conductor and the nature of the train and the Wasteland.
• Jem was cut short because it was Screwed by the Merchandise. It had a grand finale that did nothing to solve the overarching Love Triangle between Riot, Jem, and Rio. Neither man even learns that Jem and Jerrica are the same.
• Josie and the Pussycats In Outer Space ended with the group still wandering space, trying to find Earth.
• The Learning With Pibby pilot was made to set up a potential TV series, however the series wasn't picked up, with its premise (Pibby trying to save the Warner Bros. Animation verse from The Darkness) far from resolution.
• The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, the series ended with Juniper stopping Auntie Roon, however, while on a mission to stop some magical creatures, it is revealed that she's unknowingly being watched by her friend Jodie, who has gained the ability to see magical creatures herself through a mysterious book she's holding. While other plot points were also left unresolved, this was the biggest.
• Metalocalypse originally ended on a TV Movie, The Doomstar Reqiuem, with Dethklok finally shedding their selfish ways, saving Toki and apparently on the track to godhood. But Offdensen quits being their manager to become the new head of the Church of the Black Klok, Selectia is still plotting something with his Project Falconback and Murderface was pricked by a "fan"'s spiked braclet during the movie which injects him with something and seemingly will sow discord with the band later. So what happens next? Adult Swim and creator Brendon Small getting into a disagreement over creative differences, resulting in the series getting cancelled and the plot being left unresolved for almost a decade, at which point [as] greenlit a finale movie.
• The The Modifyers pilot ended with Agent Xero and Mole managing to reclaim the All-Seeing Eye but she loses her communication ring which the villains, who only know her by one of her other personas, Lacey Shadows, find on the floor. Thanks to a combination of the show never getting greenlit and the death of one of the co-creators, we'll never know what that would have happened next.
• The 1990's cartoon Mummies Alive! ended with one of the minor characters (who'd been searching for proof of their existence) listening to fellow believers on his own radio show in what boils down into an extended Clip Show. The series was supposed to be picked up for another season, but this fell through due to low ratings.
• Oh No! It's an Alien Invasion is about a group of kids battling aliens that have captured and hidden their parents. In the final episode, just as the kids find where their parents were hidden, The Dragon gets there first and hides them somewhere else.
• Pixel Pinkie: We are not shown how Nina and Anni felt about Pixel Pinkie being possibly out of their lives forever or how they even dealt with it after suddenly being transported back into Nina's room when their last wish to visit Pixel Pinkie's world wore off. Nina's opening lines just retroactively have her say, in sad resignation, that she has lost Pixel Pinkie for good.
• "Planet Kate", an Oh Yeah! Cartoons short, ends with the audience never finding out what the alien dogs' mission is or why the map Kate made for a homework assignment happened to fit perfectly as the other half of a real map.
• Planet Sheen was quietly canceled following the quiet airing of the 24th episode in February 2013 ^note Nickelodeon gave the series The Firefly Effect after the third episode aired and the abysmal ratings came in, leaving the series to end on the sad note of Sheen never finding a way to return to Earth.
• Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja wrapped up its Season 2 finale pretty conclusively with the Ninja (Randy) vanquishing the 800-year threat of the Sorcerer once and for all, but then episode ends with a mysterious man saying that the Ninja's greatest battle has just begun. Since the show never got a third season, what this meant is never answered.
• ReBoot started the "Daemon" storyline during the third season... only to find out that they weren't getting a fourth season. That one was left hanging for years until the TV movie Daemon Rising (which used "It's About Time!" as part of the advertising). Alas, ReBoot ended on another cliffhanger not long after. Other three movies entered into production, and a webcomic was being done on the official ReBoot website to bridge the storyline gap between the old and new material. But then it ended in another cliffhanger, and the movies ended up getting scrapped.
• Robotix ended with Nemesis, who had been presumed deceased, still alive in space. If the episodes had been picked up as a full series, he and the other Terrakors would have most likely returned to Skalorr to get revenge on the Protectons.
• Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles details in its final season the invasion of Earth. Anyone Can Die is established fairly quickly, the queen is on Earth, and the whole thing seems to be heading to a massive climax. Then Sony cut the funding three episodes from the end.
• Twice In-Universe with Rugrats:
  • In the episode “At The Movies”, the babies wander off in a theater in search of a Reptar movie while their parents are lost watching the Dummi Bears movie “The Land Without Smiles”. The babies’ antics lead to the projectors breaking as the fate of the Dummi Bears’ ruler was being revealed, much to Stu’s annoyance.
  • In the episode “Reptar 2010”, the VCR playing the titular movie eats the tape, forcing Grandpa Lou to try and fix it and leading to the babies to imagine what happened. In a variation, the do get to see the end.
• Samurai Jack originally ended with an adventure where the title character helps a baby, having nothing to do with stopping Aku or getting back to the past. Eventually Subverted, as although Genndy Tartakovsky couldn't resolve the Series Goal in a theatrical movie as he wanted, he did produce a fifth season that wrapped up the series over a decade later.
• Shazzan ended with Chuck and Nancy still wandering the Arabian Nights themed world, trying to find the true owner of the rings so they would be returned home.
• Silver Surfer: The Animated Series ended with thirteen episodes, because Marvel went bankrupt. As such, the events of the final episode, which conclude with Thanos destroying all of the cosmos, remain unresolved.
• The Simpsons has an odd tendency to start episodes with one plotline that somehow activates another, and what happened to initiate the new plotline is rarely, if ever mentioned again:
  • A lampshading occurred in the episode "A Tale of Two Springfields" when, after the plot had shifted, a badger who had been living in the dog-house tries to reassert itself, but Homer accusingly tells it that they're onto something else now. The episode ends with the badger leading an army of badgers to invade Springfield when they're distracted by a concert by The Who.
  • Lampshaded again in "Simpson Safari", where a supermarket bagging boy strike tangentially led to the family going on an African safari. As the family drifts down a dangerous river on a very makeshift raft, Homer wonders if the strike back home is over. His rant is cut short when they careen over Victoria Falls. After they survive this, they follow a monkey in hopes of finding their way back to civilization... as Homer continues to rant on why those bag boys don't deserve anything.
  • Interestingly inverted in "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)", where Homer, going crazy with Throwing Down the Gauntlet to scare everyone, ends up offending someone who accepts his challenge and he and the family are forced to flee the house while he's waiting on the lawn. At the end of the episode when they return from a failed farming venture, Homer finds his opponent still waiting for him and they end up dueling after all.
  • The episode, "Missionary Impossible", with Homer on an island, where he and a girl are at the top of a tower, which is about to fall into a lava flow with them in it. The episode's plot ends there as they get interrupted by a callback to the telethon fundraiser Homer ran away from in Springfield (and a joke about Rupert Murdoch being so greedy that the show's revenue from commercials and merchandise isn't enough).
• The tenth season of The Smurfs (1981) is about a dozen of the main characters lost in time due to magical crystals traveling from time to time. As the show was cancelled after that (generally ill-received) season, it ends with it never known whether the Smurfs did return to their original time.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): The final episode of Season 2, "The Doomsday Project", ends with Robotnik's sinister plot to launch doomsday pods all over Mobius ruined, and the city of Robotropolis can return to Mobotropolis as Dr. Robotnik is left to an unknown fate. Sonic and Sally realize their emotions for each other and kiss. But that's not it — Snively tells Sonic not to be so happy as it's now his turn, and a mysterious red-eyed figure, revealed in a later interview to be Ixis Naugus, laughs threateningly behind him. Sadly, the show was canceled after Disney took over ABC.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spider-Man: The Animated Series ends without Spider-Man finding Mary Jane.
  • Spider-Man Unlimited's single season ended with Spidey still on Counter-Earth, Karen still unaware that The High Evolutionary is her grandfather, the tension in the ranks of the Knights of Wundagore unresolved, the Gobin's identity unrevealed (although it's pretty obvious where they were going) and oh yes, a cliffhanger involving a symbiote bomb! At least, if you inteprete it as a sequel to The Animated Series, it seems like Peter did find MJ. And promptly lost her again. Spider-Verse twists the knife even further with Unlimited!Spidey as well as the Knights of Wundagore getting killed off by an Inheritor. Possibly subverted tho since some sources say those versions were actually alternate universe versions.
  • Spider-Man: The New Animated Series: Peter defeats the Gaines Twins, but his friend Indy is injured thanks to them tricking Peter into attacking her. Harry, who was starting to come around that Spider-Man might not be so bad, goes back to hating him and Peter ultimately quits being Spider-Man and throws the costume into the Hudson River.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man. Did you enjoy seeing all your favorite major and minor characters from classic Spider-Man history and can't wait to see how they develop under the direction of writer Greg Weisman? Want to know what kinds of juicy drama will take place now that Gwen hotted up, and is stuck with a seemingly revenge-bent Harry Osbourn? Just how in the world did Norman survive that nasty explosion and what he's planning next? Does Peter end up with MJ or Gwen? Does Gwen even live? Tough luck, tiger. Following Disney's buying Marvel in 2010, Sony made a deal to give up their TV rights to Spider-Man in order to keep control of the film rights, leading to the show getting cancelled.
  • Marvel's Spider-Man: Despite "Maximum Venom" being the finale, some plot points were left unresolved: The Lizard and Swarm are still on the loose. The series ends with Spider-Man and his friends choosing to build a school for young heroes instead of joining the Avengers.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order, but so many plot resolves (i.e. What happens on Mandalore, what did Darth Sidious do to Darth Maul, "Did Palpatine really clone the Zillo Beast?", and "How do Poggle the Lesser and Wat Tambor escape from prison to be in Revenge of the Sith?") were left hanging after the show got axed after season 5 ended. Fortunately, most of the plot points were resolved in season 7, with the series returning on Disney+.
• Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters was only picked up for 26 episodes rather than an expected 52. This led to some unresolved plot points, such as Rook still being in power and framing the Flex Fighters for crimes they didn't commit, Erika's newfound superpowers, Dr. C being in a coma, Agent Reynolds being replaced by Rook's mysterious ally, the Gentleman having plans for Rook's secret identity, and more.
• Sym-Bionic Titan was cancelled before any plot points could be resolved. Some people say the cancellation was due to lack of toy sales, though co-creator Genndy Tartakovsky later revealed that the cancellation was just as fueled by executives wishing the show to be more like Ben 10.
• "Things Change", the final episode of Teen Titans (2003), was about two things. First, it was about Beast Boy finding a Terra look-alike and trying to figure out if it was really her. It was later confirmed it was her in the comic series Teen Titans Go!^note Not to be confused with the show., but the episode itself leaves it ambiguous. Which to be fair, according to the writers and voice actors, was the entire point: sometimes things change and you don't get the resolution that you wanted. This never stopped fans from complaining about both it and the B-plot, though, the latter of which features a completely unexplained conflict between the other four Titans and some white alien chameleon thing. It's never explained what it is, where it came from, why it's causing trouble, or how the Titans will catch it and defeat it. And the Made-for-TV Movie that followed never once mentions it.
• Total Drama was confirmed to have ended in late 2018 when series co-creator Tom McGillis revealed that there were currently no plans for any more seasons after The Ridonculous Race, a spin-off series which had finished airing three years prior. The reason being due to the show's fleeting demographics and the franchise's original reality TV spoofing gimmick no longer being marketable. As a result, many characters (such as Courtney, Harold and Leshawna) were never given proper sendoffs and many more plotlines were never given any kind of resolution. To add further salt to the wound, the sixth season finale ("Lies, Cries, and One Big Prize") ends on the cliffhanger of Dave being left behind on the island with Scuba Bear. Likewise, the Grand Finale to The Ridonculous Race, as well as the entire show ("A Million Ways to Lose A Million Dollars"), ends with Don telling the viewers to "stay tuned for more Total Drama," implying that TDI will be back. Later subverted, as the show would be renewed for additional seasons years later.
• Transformers: Animated: though the series ended with Optimus Prime and his friends capturing Megatron, Shockwave, and Lugnut, it wasn't meant to be the series finale; a fourth season was in production, but was cancelled when Hasbro decided to cut ties with Cartoon Network and create their own television network. Among the plot points left unresolved are Blackarachnia plans to create an army of Predacons; Soundwave, Lockdown, and many other Decepticons still being on the loose; and Sari's backstory.
• TRON: Uprising ended this way. We never find out how Clu managed to capture Tron and turn him into Rinzler, if Mara and Zed ever found out that Beck was the Renegade, if Beck ever proved to them that he did not kill Abel, if Paige ever underwent a Heel–Face Turn and joined Beck's side, and whatever happened to the uprising, Argon City, and virtually every single character in this show with the exceptions of Tron, Clu, Quorra, and Flynn.
• The The Weekenders episode "Croquembouche". The episode is about Carver entering a food essay contest. Tino does his usual end-of-episode Aesop routine while Carver presents his essay on the titular style of French cake, and the ep ends with people applauding Carver's speech without showing if he won or not.
• While X-Men: The Animated Series had a definitive finale in the episode "Graduation Day", the series had few unresolved plotlines: Friends Of Humanity organization is still out there and is implied to be even more powerful, an episode with Cannon suggested that shady Government agents will try to manipulate mutants to destroy each other and most importantly Apocalypse had returned to plan more evil. However, It was revealed in 2021 that Marvel is planning to reviving the show under the name X-Men ‘97, so this trope may be averted in the future.
• The Winx Club spin-off World of Winx stopped production following its second season, ending on an unresolved cliffhanger where the Winx's fairy identities were revealed to the world and Venomya reveals herself as the witch Baba Yaga who plots a rebellion against fairies on Earth.
• W.I.T.C.H. ends on the girls meeting two suspicious men who are hinted to be aware of the heroes' secret identities. One of them introduces himself as Raphael Sylla, the girls' new teacher, who states he is "very interested" in getting to know the five of them (Sylla being a villain in the original comic series' third arc). Due to the show's cancellation, this plot point ultimately goes nowhere.
• Zorro: Generation Z ends on the corrupt mayor losing his reelection campaign to a much more competent crime boss who also coopted most of his former henchmen in the process. And to stand against this new, greater better, Zorro and Scarlet Whip reveal their secret identities to each other. Because a second season never happened, the increased threat to the city and our hero was never resolved. Although strangely, the intro sequence that was made for the second season looks as if they would've gone back on this, showing the former villain a lot as if he'd be the main antagonist again.

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