The end.

Movies used to put those words on the screen.

Now, it seems as if no movie or television series commits to an ending.

Filmmakers had no trouble telling a story in 90 to 180 minutes for decades.

Sure, there were occasional sequels and various franchises in different genres, but each installment was a self-contained unit with a beginning, middle and end. One didn’t need to see the previous Sherlock Holmes or Abbott & Costello movie to understand the nuances of what came next.

Now every other movie requires homework. Wanna see the latest “Star Wars” or Marvel flick? You need to watch three different series on Disney+ that laid the foundation for whatever is on screen.

Oh, you expected an ending to that beloved musical? Sorry, this is only act one. Come back next year with money in hand for act two.

Some of the best work this century originated on television because viewing habits have changed the economics of the film industry. Creators who don’t want to make superhero movies and action spectacles have more freedom to tell other stories on TV.

One of the greatest, most underutilized formats there is the limited series. One of the reasons people always say, “The book was better,” is because it’s nearly impossible to reduce a great 400-page (or more) novel to a manageable movie running time without losing a significant chunk of what made the book special in the first place. Instead of two hours, the storytellers have 6, 8, maybe 10 hours to explore. But whatever the running time is, a limited series has a finish line.

Perhaps the best thing I watched in 2025 was the Netflix limited series “Adolescence” about a British teenager accused of murder. It was four hours well spent and told a cohesive, compelling story.

One of the shows I just finished is Apple TV’s “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed,” which I started after seeing a few positive reviews and assuming it was a limited series.

It’s a very Hitchcockian tale of a divorced woman (Tatiana Maslany) who is being blackmailed by a cam boy she pays for online chat/virtual sex sessions. When the cam boy turns up murdered, she becomes the prime suspect.

It’s a show filled with surprise twists, colorful characters and funny juxtapositions, bouncing from Maslany’s Paula exploring online sex scams to coaching her daughter’s soccer team. Making her character a magazine/website fact checker made her researching skills plausible even as the story gets more outrageous.

Hitchcock, a man who said the running time of a movie should be directly proportional to the endurance of the human bladder, could have found a way to tell this story in about two hours, but “Maximum Pleasure” doesn’t feel padded, even with a running time about three times as long.

But “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” isn’t a limited series. As someone who’s worked at the same place for more than 40 years, I understand the appeal of job security. It’s hard enough to get a studio to green light any project. Why stop at 10 episodes if someone is willing to pay for 20, 30 or more?

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but the season finale that should have been a series finale wasn’t encouraging. It ends on a cliffhanger that strains credibility, just as its false ending does. Without getting into spoilers, there is zero reason for Paula to assume she’s safe, considering what she already knows about the people with whom she is entangled.

I bailed on another Apple TV series, “Widows Bay,” after two episodes, because I didn’t care enough about the characters to keep watching an open-ended series. When I saw a quote from one of the creators, who said they’ve laid the groundwork to take the show into so many different directions for future seasons, I knew it was time to take an exit ramp.

I liked “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” enough that I’ll tune in whenever season two arrives, but it’s one of those shows that only can sustain momentum by adding more and more twists. It felt like “Maximum Plot Twists Reached” by the end of season one, and I don’t know how many more it can pile on before it damages the good will earned in season one.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com