History InfantImmortality / LiveActionTV

* In ''Series/BeingHuman'', this trope is played with when a young boy who Mitchell befriended is hit by a car and critically injured. It is left for the mother to decide if he dies...or takes another way out. [[spoiler:They play it straight and have Mitchell turn the boy into a vampire.]]

* ''BoyMeetsWorld'': the sight of an empty hospital bassinet fails to evoke our fears that premature Joshua did not survive, thanks to this trope and the fact that it's a friggin TGIF sitcom. Sure enough, when we pan over, the baby is in mom's arms.
* ''{{ER}}'' tried to pull this too. When Abby and Luka's baby was born prematurely, a scene ended with the baby flatlining in surgery. The next scene indicated that several months had passed and featured staff members quietly discussing the couple's need for privacy. Cut to an empty crib. . .and pan to Abby holding her son. Another example, one of {{ER}}'s most famous episodes, ''Love's Labor Lost'' comes very close to averting this when Dr. Green mishandles a routine birth, and up until the final moments of the episode, it seemed very likely that the baby would die, only for him to survive while his mother did not.

* While everyone else in the McNamara family in ''NipTuck'' goes through hell and a half, the family's young daughter Annie never seems to have anything bad directly happen to her, at least in the early seasons. In fact, she is completely absent from roughly two thirds of all episodes.

* At least two children are killed during the series run of ''TheWire''.
* Like the [[ASongOfIceAndFire the novels]] it was based on, the world of ''AGameOfThrones'' is very dark and gritty, and AnyoneCanDie. To drive this home, a child of perhaps 7 or 8 years is shown impaled on a tree, along with the dismembered remains of her family group, within the first two minutes of the pilot. She is unlikely to be the first child to be dead (or die) onscreen.

* Played straight in one episode of ''LegendOfTheSeeker'', and conspicuously averted in another. In the first case, [[spoiler:a male Confessor is born, who by Confessor law has to be put to death, but Richard stops them in the end.]] In the second case, the episode opens with kids playing hide and seek, with one finding a mysterious object, and the scene cuts away when it opens. A little later, the heroes show up in the village, and find everyone dead, including the kids.

* A baby was killed by a disguised Cylon in the pilot for the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''; this is one the few -- perhaps the only -- infant ''murders'' ever shown on TV. It happened again in the second season opener, where Commander Adama (leader of the humans) drowns a baby in Baltar's dream sequence on Kobol. The baby-killing on this show is starting to worry this editor. Though that scene in the pilot was quite ambiguous, with specific directions to the actress playing the Cylon to make it so. Was it just a murder, was it a mercy killing so the baby wouldn't have to go through the nuclear holocaust that would be released in a few hours, or was it an accident with the Cylon not realizing how fragile a human baby would be?

* [[spoiler: Subverted]] in the 2009 version of ''Series/ThePrisoner''. A character's toddler daughter rides her tricycle through a gate that has carelessly been left open, in the direction of a bottomless pit. She rides closer and closer to the chasm at full speed, until, at the last minute, [[spoiler: she falls the fuck in, head-first, tricycle and all, on camera, never to be seen again.]]

* On an episode of ''CSIMiami'' the team has been searching for a kidnapped baby. When Horatio finds the guy he tries to escape by driving away with the baby in the car. After a car chase through an airport the bad guy's car flips repeatedly and both he and the baby survive without serious injury [[spoiler: until Horatio shoots the guy]].
** On the original ''CSI'', the roller coaster "Pharaoh's Fever" was considerate enough of this trope to wait to fail until ''after'' a Mom with her kids had disembarked and an all-adult group of riders had gotten on board.

* Played to the hilt in ''CSIMiami'', when the sole survivors of a murdered family are the murderer playing his wife's postpartum stress as the cause, and a toddler who wandered away from the crime scene in a blood stained shirt.

* In ''Series/{{The100}}'', twelve-year-old Charlotte dies in the fourth episode. Unlike the usual ChildrenAreInnocent version of the trope, Charlotte '''a)''' commits suicide, and '''b)''' does so because she had already killed someone else and couldn't live with the guilt of what she'd done.

* In ''Series/{{The100}}'', the youngest of the young criminals sent to Earth [[spoiler: is DrivenToSuicide by her guilt over killing Wells, whose father oversaw the execution of her parents]].

* In ''Series/{{Glue}}, Ruth's daughter Cassie almost dies twice thanks to her mom's negligence - but survives both times.

* Inverted in ''Series/BabylonFive'' - the youngest character to survive an episode is a teenager: [[spoiler: Garibaldi's daughter.]]
* The dog variation is lampshaded by Dr Johnny Fever in an episode of ''WKRPInCincinnati'' in which he says "It's like in the movies, ya know? You can waste the entire Confederate army, nobody cares - hundreds of thousands of guys deader than doornails! But kill one collie, everybody collapses in grief!"
* In an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', a young girl is the only survivor of a plague on her planet. It is later revealed that she was turned into a bomb in order to destroy the SGC. She doesn't actually blow up, though.
* ''Series/{{Aishiteru}}'''s plot starts with the death of a seven year old boy. To make things worse, the murderer is a ten-year-old.
* Egregiously played in the National Geographic documentary ''Literature/GunsGermsAndSteel'' where a Boer family was attacked by the Zulus and we see the husband, wife, and the older son dead in the morning. However, the infant survived the attack and his cries can be heard.
* While everyone else in the McNamara family in ''NipTuck'' goes through hell and a half, the family's young daughter Annie never seems to have anything bad directly happen to her, at least in the early seasons. In fact, she is completely absent from roughly two thirds of all episodes.
* {{House}}'s PatientOfTheWeek doesn't always make it, and this has included babies.
* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' : In the very first episode [[spoiler: Hera kills Herc's wife and all three of his children.]]
* Surprisingly enough, subverted in PowerRangers (specifically, PowerRangersInSpace). Granted, it happens offscreen, but a one-shot character is mentioned to have had a 12-year-old brother who died recently. Not only is it a plot point of the episode, but she's even seen at his grave at one point. These types of occurrences are part of why PowerRangersInSpace is considered DarkerAndEdgier compared to most other Power Ranger seasons.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Exceptions]]
* Often averted on daytime soaps.
** ''AllMyChildren'' killed off infant Leora (heart defect) in 2003 and Donna's baby (fire) in the early 80's, as well as Gloria's premature infant Anna Claire (one of the saddest daytime scenes EVER), and most notably, Brooke's 6-year daughter Laura was killed by a drunk driver.
** One of Series/GeneralHospital's most famous storylines involved BJ Jones being killed in a car accident and her heart being given to her dying cousin Maxie.
** Many soaps (AsTheWorldTurns, OneLifeToLive, ''Series/TheBoldAndTheBeautiful'') have featured characters being within weeks of delivery a healthy baby, only for tragedy to strike -- car accident, premature labor -- resulting in the baby's stillbirth.
** Even more disturbing is that the likelihood of this often seems to be inversely proportional to the mother's or couple's feelings about the pregnancy -- if she's HappilyMarried (or happily involved with the baby's father),happy about the pregnancy, and looking forward to motherhood, odds are, the child is doomed. If she's miserable and/or the child was conceived under dicey circumstances, such as an affair, the kid will make it. Case in point-- on ''Series/TheBoldAndTheBeautiful'' Rick and Amber decided to have a child to solidify their reconciliation and were blissfully happy about her pregnancy, only for the baby to be stillborn. Meanwhile, Brooke conceived during her affair with her daughter's husband Deacon and after consciously deciding not to have an abortion, spent months wailing and angsting about the turmoil and havoc that was going to result from the child's birth and promptly gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

[[AC:Played Straight]]

[[AC:Exceptions]]

[[AC:Partial Aversions]]

* ''{{Primeval}}'' played the trope straight throughout the first three seasons where if there was ever a child involved in an anomaly attack they would be rescued or helped out but it was averted in the fourth episode of season 4 where an anomaly opened up in a school and a pack of prehistoric wild dogs ran loose. It resulted in a girl around 14 being eaten after [[TooDumbToLive she wandered out of detention and into the gym]].

* Egregiously played in the National Geographic documentary ''GunsGermsAndSteel'' where a Boer family was attacked by the Zulus and we see the husband, wife, and the older son dead in the morning. However, the infant survived the attack and his cries can be heard.

* In ''Series/The100'', the youngest of the young criminals sent to Earth [[spoiler: is DrivenToSuicide by her guilt over killing Wells, whose father oversaw the execution of her parents.]]

** Many soaps (AsTheWorldTurns, OneLifeToLive, TheBoldAndTheBeautiful) have featured characters being within weeks of delivery a healthy baby, only for tragedy to strike -- car accident, premature labor -- resulting in the baby's stillbirth.
** Even more disturbing is that the likelihood of this often seems to be inversely proportional to the mother's or couple's feelings about the pregnancy -- if she's HappilyMarried (or happily involved with the baby's father),happy about the pregnancy, and looking forward to motherhood, odds are, the child is doomed. If she's miserable and/or the child was conceived under dicey circumstances, such as an affair, the kid will make it. Case in point-- on TheBoldAndTheBeautiful Rick and Amber decided to have a child to solidify their reconciliation and were blissfully happy about her pregnancy, only for the baby to be stillborn. Meanwhile, Brooke conceived during her affair with her daughter's husband Deacon and after consciously deciding not to have an abortion, spent months wailing and angsting about the turmoil and havoc that was going to result from the child's birth and promptly gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

** One of GeneralHospital's most famous storylines involved BJ Jones being killed in a car accident and her heart being given to her dying cousin Maxie.

* In the AnimalPlanet show ''LostTapes'', anytime there's a child involved, they will be ensured to survive. Most egregious example is in the Thunderbird episode, where a boy with a broken leg is picked up by a massive raptor. The end narration says they found him the next morning with minor scrapes and bruises, meaning the giant bird of prey didn't so much as nibble the boy, and carried him in its talons with the utmost care.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': in the episode "[[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride The Runaway Bride]]", most of the Racnoss's laser beams whip around quickly -- except for one heading towards a little girl, which moves ''sloooooowly'' enough for someone to grab her and run to safety.
** Averted in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E8HumanNature Human Nature]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E9TheFamilyOfBlood The Family of Blood]]", when little Lucy Cartwright is [[spoiler:killed and has her body taken over by a member of the family]].
** Dead straight in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E3TheCurseOfTheBlackSpot The Curse of the Black Spot]]", in which a child is vaporized by the villain... and the Doctor suddenly knows all's not what it seems. With ''no'' in-story reason to think this ''at all'', the Doctor soon decides that the alien may only be moving people, not killing them, and he is soon proven right.

* Being a child makes absolutely no difference in ''Series/CriminalMinds''. Recurring villain Karl Arnold slaughters at least 8 children in the first season alone, and the second season had a child graphically burned to death ''entirely onscreen''.

** Rather brutally averted in the season 4 mid-finale when [[spoiler: Meghan is bit after accidentally finding one buried in the mud she was playing in]].