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As a pseudo-endings trope, this page has spoilers. Consider this your only warning.

So What Do We Do Now? in Live-Action TV series.


  • The A-Team ended on this. After the team had yet again defeated the bad guys of the week, they discuss the possibility of getting pardoned earlier than they thought, and Hannibal was thinking what they would do after they get their pardons.
    Hannibal: Well, I was thinking, like Bernie and George, what are we gonna do when this thing's over? I mean, what are we really qualified to do?
    • However, they soon imply that they might likely continue doing what they did in their fugitive days - go after the bad guys.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer ends with this. After defeating the First Evil, destroying the Hellmouth and the entire town of Sunnydale, and activating all of the potential Slayers, Dawn asks Buffy "what are we going to do now?" The final shot of the series is a closeup on Buffy, smiling.
    • It's later revealed, in Angel crossover episodes and the canonical Seasons Eight and onward comics that they've gone out looking for new Slayers and created a multinational demon-killing organization. That'll do nicely.
    • There's a very minor one in the Musical Episode "Once More With Feeling", which ends with a song with these lyrics: "The battle's done / And we kind of won / So we sound our victory cheer / Where do we go from here?"
      • Not really minor, as a) the song is called "Where Do We Go From Here?" and b) the Scooby Gang is caught up in existential angst following the forced revelation that by bringing Buffy back from the dead they ripped her out of Heaven and she feels like she is literally in Hell every waking moment.
  • The new series of Doctor Who has explored this with respect to his companions. The episode "School Reunion" has Sarah Jane explaining to him that her life was a bit of a wreck after he dropped her off; after what she'd seen, going back to a normal life proved undoable. It's implied this is universal among his "voluntary" companions.
    • It was especially tragic with Rose (and later Donna) because it was so sudden and unexpected. You're expecting to go off to the next adventure, when bam, the dimensional gate closes, separating you forever, or fatal My Skull Runneth Over can only be prevented by mindwipe. Sarah Jane had a fairly similar situation. However, Martha made the choice to return to her old life, and was shown to not have regretted it.
      • Well, sort of. Before she met the Doctor, she was a medical student, and after she leaves him she joins UNIT and becomes an alien-fighting badass. Though she does find time to qualify as a doctor. It's implied that even though she chose to leave, she couldn't just pick up where she'd left off, particularly after her year-long Walking the Earth nightmare situation.
      • They made sure to wrap up some loose ends in the last episode of the Tenth Doctor. Martha's engagement, apparently, didn't work out and she left UNIT; she does, however, end up with Mickey, and the pair spend their time fighting aliens. Donna finds her true love and gets married, with a little gift from the Doctor. Even Captain Jack, who is shown sulking in an alien bar after killing his own grandson and losing Ianto is a little cheered up by the Doctor, who introduces him to Alonso (the midshipman from the Titanic starship). He also saves Sarah Jane's adopted son from being hit by a car.
    • In the episode "Vengeance on Varos", the governor finally wins concessions and money from the company they sell their minerals to. He announces this to the Bread and Circuses-minded populace, and two of them hear it and are bewildered because they don't know what they will be doing with themselves.
  • Many of the comic sketches in Spike Milligan's Q series end without a Punchline (he never was one for narrative convention). Instead the cast just stop what they're doing and shuffle offstage sideways, chanting "What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now?"
  • In Game of Thrones, after Dani frees the slaves in Mereeen, most of the older ones, who had "respectable" positions as the Masters' childrens' teacher and such, wants to voluntary return to the status, since they are too old to start a new life. Dani allows them to be contracted back to the family, for no more than a year at a time.
  • Gilligan's Island first movie, "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," shows the castaways back on the mainland, finally rescued after 15 years on the island together. When they are all finished with the parades and press conferences, they start to turn away from each other, and then realize, "Wait a minute. I/We aren't going to be together anymore" and come back together for one last good-bye hug. Later, Ginger is trying to deal with the "new" Hollywood (more sex and violence), the Skipper and Gilligan have to contend with the insurance company not wanting to pay for the Minnow's replacement, the Professor constantly "inventing" things that have been around for years, and MaryAnn having to go back to the farm on Kansas. The only ones who mostly go back to their former lives are the Howells, and later, we see that they really aren't happy in the large mansion and such after spending so much time on the island. Later, when they get shipwrecked again it's almost a relief for them. Luckily, the next movie gets them rescued and the island becoming a resort.
  • Resident Alien has D'Arcy dealing with a lot of this in the form of post-Olympics blues— which is Truthin Television.
  • Sliders season 3 finale. Rembrandt and Wade have presumably slid back to original Earth. Maggie and Quinn attempt to follow them and wind up in a futuristic world. Maggie: "So how do we get home?" Quinn: "I don't know." Scene. Apparently, they thought that if they ended on a cliffhanger they couldn't get cancelled. Wrong.
    • Then the season 5 finale. Rembrandt has slid, possibly back home to his death, leaving Maggie, Mallory and Diana stranded along with Quinn's mom. And the person who can see the future just died. After standing there for five seconds, one of them asks "So... what do we do now?" "I don't know." Again, cliffhanger -> cancelled. There was talk of a Wrap It Up movie, and the ending was clearly written with such in mind, but sadly it never materialized, leaving the series Cut Short.
  • In Stargate Atlantis, at the end of Series 5, the Wraith lead by Todd agree to undertake the gene-therapy and free themselves from their reliance on using Humans as food. Despite the benefits, Todd laments that it's the end of millennia of Wraith society and culture, particularly their self-image of themselves as the Superior Species.
    Dr. Keller: It's for your benefit too. If you don't have to rely on human feeding, the war would be over.
    Todd: Perhaps... But then what would we do? Who would we be?
  • This happened frequently in The West Wing: after solving this week's problem, most of the staff sat around exhausted but exulting in their victory. President Bartlet played this one straight: he walked back to his desk, turned to his Chief of Staff and said "What's next?". Because, for the President, there is always something next.
    • The last episode of the series ends with Bartlett, his time in office finally over, gazing out the window of his plane, clearly pondering what he's going to do now. It then cuts to newly inaugurated President Santos dealing with the crisis of the moment in the Oval Office, then turning to Josh and asking "what's next?".


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