TV Deaths

[CRAMBAM]

I don't know how many people watch the Good Wife, but I think it's an excellent show. While it has political bias that I don't like, it's nowhere near as egregious as other shows like that, and the writers don't force feed their political spew on the viewer. Just as important, it's a well written show.

So this week, they shocked the viewers by killing off a major character. I don't want to talk about that since it's obviously a major spoiler, but this has been done before, and I'm curious which major TV character deaths had the most impact on you?

Let's start by getting rid of certain types of death. A character who was on TV and killed off in a theatrical movie, like Kirk, or the guy from Firefly, or Data, doesn't really count for this purpose.

Killed on the show, during its run.

Additionally, let's give the writers a little break for when they had no choice. If the actor died, like Larry Hagman, who would have gladly stayed on the show had he lived, the character's death was unavoidable.

So let's go with situations like the Good Wife, where the actor either left the show or was fired for some reason, and the writers chose to kill the character off rather than just write the character off.

Discuss.

[TrekBeatTK]

Mar 25, 2014 7:42:22 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

So this week, they shocked the viewers by killing off a major character. I don't want to talk about that since it's obviously a major spoiler, but this has been done before, and I'm curious which major TV character deaths had the most impact on you?

This is gonna require more thought, but when certain characters were gunned down in the first couple episodes of 24's fifth season, I was shocked (even though one of those deaths was retconned later).

Jadzia's death on DS9, but mainly because I didn't see why she had to die, or why she had to die that way. And then they wrote out her mirror double too for no reason. DS9 also had its share of surprising supporting character deaths like Kai Opaka and Vedek Bareil.

The times that writers killed off a character because they didn't know how to write them anymore were the worst. Best example I can think of is Dualla on BSG. What a waste.

X-Files had its share of surprise deaths (and fake deaths) too.

How about when South Park killed off Kenny and he actually stayed dead for like a year. That was unexpected!

Breaking Bad -- there are a lot of choices here. For me, I was really stunned about how the opening of season 4. I had so hoped it was a misdirect, but no, that was a real death.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

I'm not sure if this was a first, but I would go with James Evans Sr. on Good Times.

I was a big fan of the show, but never watched it until it was in syndication, and I was told James was going to die before I saw it. But that said, thinking about it now, it was the big jump the shark moment for the show.

I have the entire run on DVD, and James is probably my favorite character. He was essential in what they were trying to do, and when he died, the show's dynamic changed. James was a strong male lead and the humor he brought to the show was underrated.

Worse, he was killed off screen, and the way he died wasn't exactly revealed. You assume car accident, but it's just not clear.

Even though for purposes of this discussion, it doesn't count, that's a problem I had with Finn's death on Glee. They refused to say how a 19 year old kid would die. They patted themselves on the back by not coming up with anything either.

Awful choice.

[TK]

Mar 25, 2014 9:24:19 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Even though for purposes of this discussion, it doesn't count, that's a problem I had with Finn's death on Glee. They refused to say how a 19 year old kid would die. They patted themselves on the back by not coming up with anything either.

Awful choice.

YES! I forgot about that. I hated that they never told us, as if it didn't matter. When a lead character dies, that's a big deal. I liked the episode generally, but the fact they never told us really bothered me. I've given up on Glee at this point.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

They not only never told us, they smugly told us they were never going to tell us.

It was a conscious decision, and their logic was weak. It DOES matter how someone dies because it's natural to want to know. This hold true more when the person is so young.

Corey Monteith died of a drug overdose, but his character, was not a drug user, so had Finn died of say, a brain aneurism, that would have fit. Or an accident. That's how people that young die. It wouldn't have killed the writers to do that.

[CRAMBAM]

And on that note, got another one.

Edith Bunker.

She was one of the most popular TV characters of all time, but because Jean Stapleton wanted to leave the show, they decided to kill Edith off. That was a shame.

[TrekBeatTK]

Mar 26, 2014 6:03:30 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

And on that note, got another one.

Edith Bunker.

She was one of the most popular TV characters of all time, but because Jean Stapleton wanted to leave the show, they decided to kill Edith off. That was a shame.

Edith's a case where the show had gone on so long and most of the cast was gone anyway. They tried to rebrand the show as "Archie Bunker's Place", but by then Stapleton had left and was making cameo appearances. She asked to be killed off because it made more sense to her than for Edith to just be randomly showing up or missing here and there. So it was a bummer they did it, but really at that point they should have killed the show instead. It had been on a good what ten years? Mike and Gloria had moved out, they had little Stephanie for awhile, but by then the juice was gone.

At least it was believable for an older woman to die and they handled it well. But the audience doesn't want to see that, and they should have just cancelled the show instead of trying to drag it out.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

But in that case, I have to blame the actress.

It's a pet peeve of mine. Yes, I recognize that a person has the right to leave a job, and do what he/she wants. But that said, Edith was the role of a lifetime. Audiences loved her, and Jean Stapleton had to know that.

I believe an actor, while maybe not having the obligation, should see a role through to the end of the show's run.

I'm not saying they didn't handle the death well. They absolutely did. But here's a case of something that was due to an actor's choice, not a real life event.

[StarFuryG7]

Are there any fans of "Forever Knight" here?

I'm inclined to doubt it, but have any of you considered checking that show out perhaps, but just never got around to it? I'm not sure if it still airs on the Chiller Channel, but if so, this post will contain some major Spoilers, so you might want to stop reading now.

Detective Schanke, who was the main character's partner for the first two seasons, was very unceremoniously killed off, along with the Captain of their precinct, and for such a good show, it was handled very poorly. The last episode you see Schanke in is the season two finale, and then when they pick things up again at the start of season three, Knight is having a one-sided phone conversation with him (you never even hear Schanke's voice on the other end), with the pretext being that Schanke has gotten on a plane with their Captain for a work-related trip out of Toronto, where the show is set. Shortly thereafter, Knight is on the street, hears a crash, and dekbris starts spreading over the street where Knight is, and what does he see? A picture of Schanke on the ground blowing by, and I thought, "Oh, come on!". Their plane conveniently crashed right where Knight could witness it, and of course, that's how Schanke and their Captain are both written out of the show.

But for cryin'out loud --Knight happens to be right near where the plane happens to go down ...and not a small plane mind you, but a passenger jet. And he just happens to see and pick up Schanke's picture as it blows right by him on the goddamn street.

It would have been far better if they had just written the character out early in the episode with some dialogue than to do what they did there.

And Schanke wasn't exactly the most appealing or even likable character. He was there as a foil for Knight, and he exhibited mankind's lesser qualities to a great extent. He was an average guy with an overinflated opinion of himself and his accomplishments, of which there really weren't many. He was likeable, but only up to a point, and he never learns Knight's big secret --that he's really a vampire.

At the end of that first season three episode, Knight and the precinct's medical examiner, who's a close friend of his, stand over Schanke's grave, headstone and all, with her lamenting the passing of him and Knight's boss, the Captain. So not even a funeral --but a headstone already in place by the end of that ep.

At the time, in order to get a third season, "Forever Knight" was semi-transitioning from syndication to the basic cable market as well, and as a condition of the USA Network picking up the show for airing on their channel, they insisted on certain cast changes. Dumping the actor who played Schanke was one of them, with their adding two new characters, one of which would be Knight's new partner --an attractive blonde actress named Lisa Ryder (see "Andromeda"), who took on the role of Tracy Vetter, and Ben Bass ("Rookie Blue"), who played another vampire that strayed into Knight's domain named Vachon. The two men weren't really friends.

There was a lot of resentment toward those two characters and the actors who played them because a contingent of the show's small cult fan base didn't like the changes, and didn't like the way the Schanke character was killed off, but overall, season three wasn't really bad at all, and had some of the best episodes once that whole brouhaha was out of the way.

I should revisit this show. I have the entire series on DVD. Unfortunately, much like with "Babylon 5", it looks very dated now, but if you view it as a period drama/thriller, it's a lot easier to deal with and accept. The show premiered in the early 90s, but its first season looks as though it was still set back in the 80s. It smoothes out by its second season in that regard though, and by its third and final season, all of the rough spots on how to handle the show on a strictly technical level had been ironed out, and it was a finely tuned production. (This was before Canadian shows became so commonplace here in the U.S., to the point that we now mostly just take them for granted as something of a given here.)

It was also something of a hybrid series in that it was not only a crime drama, but also had the horror aspect because it dealt with vampires, and sometimes even ghosts, and featured routine concurrent storylines flashing back from the present to centuries past, and would even cross the line over to science fiction as well due to Knight's desire to find a cure to his condition, or if the plot somehow otherwise generally called for it. Taking all those aspects into account, it falls into the supernatural drama category therefore, which is a genre in its own right.

This was the same decade that "The X-Files" was on TV in first-run, and had grown quite popular, so nothing about the tone and themes of "Forever Knight" should come as any surprise, but it all made it a very fascinating series, and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

It's a shame it never really got the credit and attention it deserved.

[captainbasil]

Forever Knight was a great show. I don't know if I ever saw the entire series. I used to watch it late at night and I occasionally catch it on Chiller on a day off. You're absolutely right. It never got the credit it deserved.

[CRAMBAM]

I think a few days have passed, so hopefully it won't be too spoilery to talk about the finale of How I Met Your Mother.

HIMYM was a pretty good show. I thought the writers were terrific, the characters were likeable, and NPH was absolutely brilliant.

SPOILER

















So in the finale, after 9 years, they did the something I consider galactically stupid.

They killed the Mother.

I had a feeling they were going in that direction last year, when they did a scene where Ted, in a fantasy flashback that never happened, showed up at the Mother's doorstep 45 days before he met her and gave some dramatic speech about how he would do anything for those 45 extra days.

A few weeks later, in the finale, they introduced the mother to the audience so she could be part of the cast in the final season.

It was great casting, and the mother was written well.

The whole show was basically a man's evolution to the point where when he met the mother, it would be perfect for him. I would think everyone goes through this--years of dating the wrong people, or meeting the wrong people, so that when the right one comes along, you know it.

And the finale was good.

It showed us most of his life with the mother and how the cast interacted from the years 2013-2030.

Until the last 2 minutes.

All that storytelling, and they shattered the show by killing the mother, and worse, having Ted end up with Robin, who the show spent 9 years showing wasn't right for him.

They ruined the premise of the show in the last 2 minutes.

In life, unexpected things happen, but it is extremely rare for someone under the age of 40 to die of a sickness.

And in fiction, to tell a story like that and do that to the audience was an amazingly stupid decision from otherwise brilliant writers.

They had this in mind all the way back in season two, when they filmed some of the last 2 minutes of the show. But they should have realized that their idea was terrible, especially in a show that ran 9 years, and simply not used that footage.

A fan recut that ending doing just that, and it was so well done it made national news.

They basically had the mother be a place holder for Robin, who is now in her 50s, alone and living with 2 dogs, having shut out her friends, and now may be willing to settle for the one guy who she blew off for 25 years but clearly still wants her.

Pathetic ending, and a horrible tv death.

[TrekBeatTK]

Apr 4, 2014 6:29:00 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I think a few days have passed, so hopefully it won't be too spoilery to talk about the finale of How I Met Your Mother.

HIMYM was a pretty good show. I thought the writers were terrific, the characters were likeable, and NPH was absolutely brilliant.

SPOILER

















So in the finale, after 9 years, they did the something I consider galactically stupid.

Totally agree, I was so disappointed. There had been some speculation that the mother might be dead by the time he's telling the story, and I certainly think it could have been valid to go there. BUT they didn't kill her off to justify Ted telling this story; the killed her off so he could get with Robin! After the pilot, when we were told he doesn't end up with Robin, we wait nine years only to find out that after he has found the girl of his dreams, everything ends exactly like the pilot did. And all that build-up to Robin and Barney's wedding and then they divorce. Why? So Ted ends up with Robin. What was the point of any of it? Just so Ted gets kids because Robin can't have kids, and now he can have everything? One could argue then that the show was saying life is worthless without kids (Barney also didn't fully change until he had his own kid).

I know I can't totally blame Carter and Bays that the series ran so long since CBS wanted to keep a hit on their hands, but NINE YEARS essentially wasted when they knew it was going to end like this the whole time! I could have accepted that his perfect wife died, but not that she was just killed off rather unceremoniously because she was an obstacle in getting Ted with Robin. The show was called HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, not HOW I FINALLY SNAGGED YOUR AUNT ROBIN.

I have not been this mad about a series finale since Battlestar Galactica.

And they could have at least dubbed old Ted's lines with Bob Sagat, since it doesn't make any sense now that we've heard Sagat narrate for nine years only to have Ted finish the story.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

First, a fan made a video that edited the ending so that the mother doesn't die. It was perfect, it went viral, and it got a lot of approval.

Apparently the DVD is going to have a recut ending that is better too as an option.

I can blame Carter and Bays. They spent all that time showing Ted and Robin don't work, and had Ted get to the point where he let her go, and then THAT ending?

It was terrible.

[Mel]

Probably none of you watched Charmed, but I've seen it from start to finish several times, as it's one of my niece's favorite shows.  During the original run, it was shocking when Prue (Shannon Doherty) was killed off.   At first I was angry (even though Paige, played by Rose McGowan, was an excellent addition).  Shannon Doherty was behind the character being killed off.  She refused to sign a two-year contract renewal. I've wondered if Doherty regretted it, given that her career seemed to stall after that.