The show ended in 1991 but a number of one-off specials and a BBC revival followed, before the programme finally came to an end in 2003. In 2004 "After Dark" was characterised as "legendary" by the Open University and in 2014 as "the most uncensorable programme in the history of British television". In 2016 "The Herald" wrote that "Unlike reality television live feeds today, "After Dark" was essential viewing, with some very serious talk enlivened even more by unexpected events." In 2017 the "Journal of British Cinema and Television" called it "an excitingly different and politically adventurous kind of programme" and in 2018 an academic history of independent television production in the UK judged it "as an 'experiment' that challenged the limitations of television as a medium of intensive and democratic deliberation and discussion it was very successful, and from the vantage of history still seems remarkably fresh to this day."