People can hate an ending and the show can still be popular? A lot of folks, myself included, along with various others - just ignore the last two seasons as if they never happened. Buffy is kind of similar? There are people who hated S6 & 7, so they just ignore them. Not everyone is a completist. Some just ignore the portions of the series they hated. There are Tolkien fans who don't like Return of the King for example. And Star Wars fans who hate the prequels.