History DeadlyGame / LiveActionTV

* Several Sci Fi Channel and Creator/{{Syfy}} game shows, including ''Exit'' (an American version of ''DERO!'' that plays itself off even more seriously than the original), ''Estate of Panic'', and ''Total Blackout'', have emulated this trope, subjecting losing teams to simulated death traps or dropping them into unlighted pits "never to return".

** Around the same time, Creator/{{ABC}} aired a {{dueling show|s}} called ''Series/TheChair2002'' which had a similar premise, though not nearly as evil.

** ''Series/KamenRiderGeats'' is explicitly based on the BattleRoyaleGame video game genre. Supposedly, the competition featured in the series was organized as a way to recruit warriors to keep invading monsters in check (but it's eventually revealed that it's really [[spoiler:an ImmoralRealityShow and the monsters are under the game organizers' control -- [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters or not]]]]). And like ''Ryuki'', the participants are charged to fight with the winner getting a wish granted; though at least this time they're only supposed to fight the monsters and attacking other players is penalized (under normal circumstances, anyway[[note]]one round involves zombies, and attacking a ZombieInfectee isn't punished[[/note]]). While it's clarified that most players are simply sent home with their memories wiped after being EliminatedFromTheRace, there are still always at least a few fatalities every time the game is played.

* ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook:'' Should a game of Numberwang go without either contestant achieving Numberwang, the game goes into Sudden Death, where the contestants are placed in chambers filled with poisonous gas. Whoever dies first "wins".
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2002'' featured an episode titled "How Much Do You Love Your Kid?" in which a reality show kidnaps a woman's son and said mother has to track down the kidnapper before it's too late. The twist is that [[spoiler:the woman's ex-husband was the kidnapper and was in on the whole thing. The trauma she suffered from the game prompts her to shoot him, causing her to win but now have to use the prize money for an attorney]].

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''
** The episode "Games" has the MacGuffin protected by lethal {{Booby Trap}}s which include a flight simulator and QuickDraw game that killed the players if they didn't win. Fortunately AcePilot Tarrant and TheGunslinger Soolin [[PlotTailoredToTheParty just happen to be]] on the BoardingParty sent to get it.
** The episode "Gambit" includes a game of speed chess where the challenger is strapped to an electric chair. He either wins an obscene amount of money, or he loses and the resident chessmaster pushes a button and fries him. After Vila and Avon scam the casino with the help of [[MasterComputer Orac]], Vila is tricked into playing the game.
** The episode "Death-Watch" features a one-on-one duel to the death conducted between representatives of two planets who use the duels as a substitute for all-out interplanetary war. The events are broadcast widely, and of course nobody could possibly want to interfere with them for their own political gain...

* The episode "Judgment Day" in the ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' series did a version of this with a reality TV show in which convicted criminals are hunted down on camera as their punishment.
* An interesting twist was seen in an episode of ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' with members of the Village taking part in a giant chess game with themselves as the pieces. It's not meant to be fatal, but one 'piece' who decides to move on his own initiative is subject to forced brainwashing.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' had "The Squire of Gothos". The Trelane character is a godlike alien with a child's mind who is infatuated with Earth military history, particularly the Victorian era. He insists that he is a retired General and demands to be called Squire, eventually pitting Kirk and company against him in a "hunt." The character served as an inspiration for Creator/JohnDeLancie's Q, a recurring character on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "Hide and Q", the alien transplants the ''Enterprise'' crew into a Napoleonic war zone, and in "Q Pid", he forces Picard to reenact the exploits of Robin Hood and save Maid Marian from the Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Q himself.
-->'''Q''': "'Fairness' is such a ''human'' concept. Think imaginatively! This game shall, in fact, be ''completely'' unfair!"
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** Subverted in the episode "Move Along Home". The crew seems to be trapped in a Deadly Game played by Quark and an alien. In the end, the entire crew is killed and removed from play to Quark's horror. Then they rematerialize back on the station, and the aliens who created the game are mystified by the fact that anyone would even consider that the people trapped in the game might be in real danger: it's only a game, after all.
** Played straight, however, in "Our Man Bashir", in which the main crew's transporter patterns are sent into the James-Bond-esque holosuite program Bashir and Garak are enjoying, and Bashir must keep all the characters alive to prevent the program from erasing them from the game.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E15Tsunkatse Tsunkatse]]", Seven and Tuvok are captured and forced to do gladiatorial combat, which is broadcast across space to numerous locations. [[YouBastard Particularly jarring]] in that until they see Seven fighting, the crew of Voyager is enjoying these matches. Said episode features a cameo from Wrestling/TheRock. To be fair though, only some of the matches were to the death. The Rock's cameo was a non-lethal bout which Seven lost, called a blue match. The red match she is put in later is lethal.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E17TheKillingGame The Killing Game]]", the Hirogen seize Voyager and brainwash the crew into playing holodeck characters in various war programs with the safety protocols turned off. The Doctor is working flat out to prevent anyone dying.

** ''Series/KamenRiderGeats'' is explicitly based on the BattleRoyaleGame video game genre. Supposedly, the competition featured in the series was organized as a way to recruit warriors to keep invading monsters in check. And like ''Ryuki'', the participants are charged to fight with the winner getting a wish granted; though at least this time they're only supposed to fight the monsters and attacking other players is penalized (under normal circumstances, anyway[[note]]one round involves zombies, and attacking a ZombieInfectee isn't punished[[/note]]). While it's clarified that most players are simply sent home with their memories wiped after being EliminatedFromTheRace, there are still always at least a few fatalities every time the game is played.

** Around the same time, Creator/{{ABC}} aired a {{dueling show|s}} called ''Series/TheChair'' which had a similar premise, though not nearly as evil.

** ''Series/KamenRiderGeats'' is explicitly based on the BattleRoyaleGame video game genre. Supposedly, the competition featured in the series was organized as a way to recruit warriors to keep invading monsters in check. And like ''Ryuki'', the participants are charged to fight with the winner getting a wish granted; though at least this time they're only supposed to fight the monsters and attacking other players is penalized (under normal circumstances, anyway[[note]]one round involves zombies, and attacking a ZombieInfectee isn't punished[[/note]]). Even so, it's shown that there are heavy losses every time the game is played, with thirty-odd players participating but only a handful making it through (though [[UncertainDoom it's ambiguous if failing a round's objective results in death the way that being done in by a monster does]]).

** ''Series/KamenRiderGeats'' is explicitly based on the BattleRoyaleGame video game genre. Supposedly, the competition featured in the series was organized as a way to recruit warriors to keep invading monsters in check. And like ''Ryuki'', the participants are charged to fight with the winner getting a wish granted; though at least this time they're only supposed to fight the monsters and attacking other players is penalized (at least under normal circumstances). Even so, it's shown that there are heavy losses every time the game is played with only a few making it to the end out of dozens (though [[UncertainDoom it's ambiguous if failing a round's objective results in death the way that being done in by a monster does]]).

* The {{Tokusatsu}} show ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki'' was all about this: An unwilling Hero, an AntiHero, an ActionGirl and a bunch of [[{{Jerkass}} Jerkasses]] are drawn into an [[AlternateUniverse alternate dimension]] populated with maneating monsters. Then everyone gets a PowerArmor, a MechanicalMonster as a BondCreatures and... [[CollectibleCardGame a deck of cards]]. And these guys are all more or less ''adults''. With this equipment, they get to fight each other to the death, with the last survivor being granted [[MakeAWish a wish]] by the mysterious host of this Deadly Game called "Rider War". It turns out that [[spoiler: the host has no intention on keeping his word. He has all those people fighting for their lives and killing each other so that he can use his overpowered Kamen Rider Odin, actually a puppet who is an extension of his will (sucks to be the poor sap who put on the suit) in order to win the wish, using it to save his sister.]] Considering that Kamen Rider is normally a franchise of {{Superhero}} shows, Ryuki was received as a case of {{Deconstruction}}; an attempt to make an [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids already pretty Dark and Edgy]] series even DarkerAndEdgier.
** Ironically, the American adaptation ''Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight'' is more true to the genre than it is to its source material, reverting back to the "{{Henshin Hero}}es fighting monsters to save the world" theme. It also keeps one of the best aspects of Ryuki - each Rider having his own story and each desiring to gain something different by participating. What each one thinks the battle between Riders really is differs from Rider to Rider. (At least one thinks he's FightClubbing.) In truth, [[spoiler: the bad guy has almost all of the Rider decks. Each only works for its designated user, so he has to get the Earthen doubles of the Riders of his dimension to fight for him, usually by either trickery, or messing with their lives behind the scenes and then sweeping in to offer them the only way out.]]
** ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' has a video game theme and a medical theme in one. The villains are basically ''both'' kinds of virus at once, programs based on in-universe video game villains arising from humans suffering from the 'game disease.' It turns out the mysterious "Kamen Rider Chronicle" game the main villains want to create is very much this: it allows you to become a Rider-like warrior called a Ride Player and battle the {{Mooks}} and monsters in the real world. There are two catches they ''don't'' tell you: one, "Game Over" means you die. Two, from the moment you first transform you are infected with the game disease, and so must win or die anyway!

* The entire premise of ''Series/{{Inquizition}}''.
* Theoretically, the real life game show ''Series/Downfall2010'' could have been played off like one (they managed to get Chris Jericho to host too!), had they not tried to avert it as much as possible and point out they were not trying to be evil.
* However, what ABC put into the "post-''Series/{{Wipeout|2008}}'' slot" one year later, ''Series/OneHundredAndOneWaysToLeaveAGameShow'', is a lot more justifiable as a deadly game, or at least something that's so overly ridiculous that it can easily be played off as one.
* Series/ScratchNSniffsDenOfDoom pits five human contestants against two puppet hyenas looking to eat them. With four or all of the contestants winding up dead by the end of each show, there's a less than 20% chance of surviving while playing the game.
* Invoked by the French made-for-TV documentary ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Jeu_de_la_Mort Le Jeu de la Mort]]'', which performed Stanley Milgram's famous peer influence experiment with the added element of RealityTV. The test subjects were supposedly being paid to participate as contestants on a GameShow pilot, ''La Zone Xtrême''. As with the original experiment, they were to administer increasingly powerful shocks to someone else (who was a trained actor, much like the original) as punishment for answering questions wrong; ranging from from "mild buzz" to "lethal". But this time, the subject was prodded on by both the host ''and'' a StudioAudience to deliver the shocks. Out of the 80 people who auditioned, 64 of them, or 80%, went all the way to the highest level of shock, as they were instructed.
* The Japanese game show ''Series/{{DERO}}!'' was played off as one, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek -- contestants who lost a round were talked about as if they had just died, but the "deaths" were blatantly fake (and this was quite clearly intentional), and everyone would appear back on camera after the round without so much as a scratch (except for the Water Room leaving players soaking wet). Each game had its own way in which contestants could "die" and lose the round, such as having the MalevolentArchitecture dump them into a BottomlessPit, or cutting the wrong wire in a WireDilemma and being "blown up" with a blast of CO[[subscript:2]] smoke effects.
* Several Sci Fi Channel and Creator/{{Syfy}} game shows, including ''Exit'' (an American version of ''DERO!'' that plays itself off even more seriously than the original), ''Estate of Panic'', and ''Total Blackout'', have emulated this trope, subjecting losing teams to simulated death traps or dropping them into unlighted pits "never to return".

* Another Fox show, the 2001 reality game show ''Series/MurderInSmallTownX'', did this in {{kayfabe}}. It featured its contestants as investigators trying to solve a series of murders in [[LovecraftCountry small-town Maine]]. The method of getting VotedOffTheIsland? Getting "murdered" by the killer. Ironically, the winner of the show, FDNY firefighter Ángel Juarbe, Jr., died on 9/11 -- just one week after the final episode aired.
* ''Series/{{Hellevator}}'' on Creator/{{GSN}}, a show in which a team of three contestants must complete three challenges themed around horror movies, all while being stalked and chased by masked maniacs who "kill" them if they fail the challenge.
* [[MemeticMutation Meanwhile, in Russia]], a tech millionaire named Yevgeny Pyatkovsky [[http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/sick-rules-for-new-russian-reality-tv-show-allow-contestants-to-fight-rape-and-murder-each-other/news-story/eb6a370c750cefc4e4e6de6e0fd3449f made headlines in 2016]] by announcing a show called ''[=Game2=]: Winter''. Essentially a hardcore version of ''Series/{{Survivor}}'', the show would've seen thirty contestants dumped into a 50,000-acre tract of Siberian taiga and left to survive for nine months, each of them provided with only a knife, a video camera with rechargeable batteries, and wilderness survival training from ex-Spetsnaz operatives. There would be no film crew or medical staff, only two thousand cameras rigged up to film everything remotely, though each contestant would have a "panic button" they can use for rescue via helicopter (at the cost of forfeiting the game).\\\
The premise alone was enough to put it on this list, with all contestants signing waivers absolving the producers of any responsibility for injuries, trauma, or deaths. However, what really pushed it over the top was Pyatkovsky's explicit promise that everything would be permitted, including fighting, rape (the contestants would be evenly split along gender lines), and murder. He did backtrack when pressed on the matter of such things being against the law, [[http://www.snopes.com/russian-reality-show-game2-winter-allows-rape-murder/ reminding people]] that the laws of Russia would still apply, and that the authorities would prosecute any crimes committed by the contestants. In the end, it turned out that the show didn't exist and was actually [[http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/anger-as-controversial-siberian-hunger-games-creator-claims-his-idea-was-a-fake/ a publicity stunt]] that Pyatkovsky had carried out for market research, leaving many people who'd signed up to participate feeling that they'd been duped and that Pyatkovsky had done little more than [[StopBeingStereotypical fuel negative Russian stereotypes]] (ironically, he mentioned anti-Russian sentiment as one of the reasons he'd pitched the show, as he figured that [[TheTysonZone everybody would believe it]]).
* ''Series/Whodunnit2013'' has this in its premise, as it's a TenLittleMurderVictims scenario with TheMole "Murdering" last week's eliminated contestant in a way that the contestants have to solve, with the worst being the next VictimOfTheWeek.

** Another ''SNL'' skit featuring Chris Farley parodied Japanese game shows. It seemed to be just a Japanese counterpart to Jeopardy, with three contestants being asked questions by a host. However, it turns out that if you get the question wrong, you have to kill yourself. Farley's character, a FishOutOfWater American who doesn't understand what's going on, blunders his way to the final round, where getting the questions wrong gets him electrocuted.

** Game 1 is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statues_(game) Red Light, Green Light]] with an automaton outfitted with motion sensor cameras. Any player caught moving during "Red Light" is shot, as are all players who fail to cross the finish line before the time limit.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2002'' featured an episode promptly titled "How Much Do You Love Your Son?" in which a reality show kidnaps a woman's son and said mother has to track down the kidnapper before it's too late. The twist is that [[spoiler:the woman's ex-husband was the kidnapper and was in on the whole thing. The trauma she suffered from the game prompts her to shoot him, causing her to win but now have to use the prize money for an attorney]].

** Game 4 splits the players into groups of two to play marbles, with each player tasked with [[spoiler:[[FightingYourFriend winning all of their opponent's marbles]] in whatever way they choose, short of violence. Players who lose all of their marbles are shot, as are any pairs who fail to determine a winner within the time limit]].

** Game 4 splits the players into groups of two to play marbles, with each player tasked with winning all of their opponent's marbles in whatever way they choose, short of violence. Players who lose all of their marbles are shot, as are any pairs who fail to determine a winner within the time limit.

** The final game is the "[[TitleDrop squid game]]", a comparatively complex game that amounts to one player (or group of players) attempting to reach a certain point on the playing field while the other(s) try to push them out of bounds. The game continues until all but one player dies, winner take all.

* ''Series/{{Whodunnit}}'' has this in its premise, as it's a TenLittleMurderVictims scenario with TheMole "Murdering" last week's eliminated contestant in a way that the contestants have to solve, with the worst being the next VictimOfTheWeek.

* ''[[http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Scratch_%27n%27_Sniff%27s_Den_of_Doom Scratch 'N' Sniff's Den of Doom]]'' pits five human contestants against two puppet hyenas looking to eat them. With four or all of the contestants winding up dead by the end of each show, there's a less than 20% chance of surviving while playing the game.