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5* ''Series/TwentyOneJumpStreet'': Captain Jenko is only in the first six episodes of the series before he gets killed offscreen by a drunk driver. This is quite abruptly revealed to the audience in the [[TheTeaser Cold Open]] of episode seven, and within a few minutes after the opening credits, a new captain is introduced.
6* ''Series/TwentyFour'':
7** As beloved as the fifth season is, it's generally agreed that the series royally screwed up by killing Michelle and Tony over the course of the season. Tony's exit, in particular, was given a lot of criticism due to him being arguably the second most important character next to Jack and even being on the show since the beginning but going out with virtually no fanfare whatsoever. This got so bad that the writers had to eventually retcon his death for season 7... though his treatment there has a particular BrokenBase, with some fans ''actually wishing he'd stayed dead''.
8** The deaths of Curtis Manning and Renee Walker in seasons 6 and 8 respectively have also generated a lot of controversy (especially Curtis). Curtis was a character that many fans felt was a worthy equal to Jack Bauer when it came to working in the field and were none too happy in the much maligned-sixth season where he suddenly gave up all his principles to try and settle an old score forcing Jack to kill him less than a quarter in. In Renee's case, a lot of fans feel that her death was specifically done as shock value just to make Jack miserable again. However, at the same time, a lot of them also wind up appreciating [[spoiler: the FallenHero RoaringRampageOfRevenge storyline]] it gave Jack as a result of her death.
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12* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Joss has developed a fondness for using this on his ''villains'';
13** John Garrett, after ''multiple'' scenery-chewing speeches, KickTheDog moments, and {{Next Tier Power Up}}s, gets yet ''another'' power boost (this time via PainfulTransformation), and rises stronger than ever, gloating at his new power with evil music rising... and then Coulson nonchalantly blasts him with a disintegrator ray. He doesn't even tell the rest of the team that Garrett nearly came back, nor even give Garrett the dignity of a BondOneLiner. It's implied that he'd had the blasted thing trained on Garret throughout the entire screaming process, and just ''let'' the megalomaniac mutilate himself prior to dispatching him for a touch of schadenfreude.
14** Daniel Whitehall, [=HYDRA=] leader and [[DiscOneFinalBoss Apparent]] BigBad of Season Two, is unceremoniously shot InTheBack by Coulson and dies instantly, mere seconds before he was about to square off in a deadly confrontation with the Doctor, the man whose wife he horribly murdered. The anticlimax was intentional as the Doctor wanted his revenge against Whitehall to be as drawn out and bloody as possible and [[VengeanceDenied by depriving him of that]], his hatred and rivalry with Coulson, whom he already resented for being the ParentalSubstitute for his missing daughter, escalates further.
15* At the beginning of Season 6 of ''Series/AlFondoHaySitio'', Nelly dies of a sudden heart attack. Cue another character, Don Gilberto, letting out a BigNo because of this.
16* ''Series/AlmaPirata'': Benicio had to be written out of the show after the actor decided he wanted out, so the show producers decided to have him killed off by BigBad Gino, who forced Allegra to watch (which came off as a bit of an out-of-character moment, as Gino wouldn't kill someone in front of his own daughter).
17* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'':
18** The Canary, also known as Sara Lance, in season three. Trained by [[Characters/BatmanRasAlGhul one of the most dangerous men on the planet]], she could easily go toe to toe with some of the deadliest criminals in Starling City. Then she was anticlimactically shot in the chest with three arrows by a mind-controlled Thea, someone Sara could have easily defeated. To say that fan backlash was strong was an understatement. Even the character's actress, Creator/CaityLotz, was [[CreatorBacklash visibly displeased]] with how her character was handled and considered leaving the show. Sara was eventually brought back and given ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' to headline.
19** The trope happens again in season 4, this time to Sara's sister, Laurel, who took up her mantle as the (Black) Canary. She got StuffedIntoTheFridge, being stabbed by the season's BigBad, after the doctors said she'd be fine no less. Given the importance of Black Canary in DC comics in general, and in Green Arrow in particular, fans were extremely pissed. Once again, [[PanderingToTheBase the power of fan demand]] eventually led the creators to bring her back, though not directly: the original Laurel stayed dead, while her doppelganger from an alternate universe was introduced in the sister show ''Series/TheFlash2014'' as a MonsterOfTheWeek, before transferring to ''Arrow'' as a recurring villain who eventually gained a HeelFaceTurn.
20** Amanda Waller, the head of A.R.G.U.S. and one of the most dangerous people InUniverse and in the source material, gets casually offed by a bullet through the head from a VillainOfTheWeek mercenary.
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24* ''Series/BabylonFive'': Creator/JMichaelStraczynski dropped a bridge on ''every single'' cute kid and robot that appeared. He seemed to have a rather {{Anvilicious}} interest in them not ruining the show's "serious" tone.
25** That's because Creator/JMichaelStraczynski hates cute in general. To give you an idea, one episode of ''Babylon 5'' had a teddy bear with the initials "JS" on its shirt that got a bridge dropped on it. That bear was given to him as a prank. His putting it into the episode like that was his counter-prank.
26** The character of General Hague made a few appearances in Season 2 and was intended to be a major factor in the upcoming Earth Civil War arc. When the actor took a job as a recurring character on Deep Space Nine, Hague was killed off off-camera in the first Earth-ship-versus-Earth-ship engagement. This provided a very funny "no hard feelings" blooper when the actor who is announcing Hague's death to the other characters, a solemn moment in the script, says, "General Hague...is doing ''Deep Space Nine''. His agent double-booked him, there was nothing we could do."
27** Talia Winters was a major character during the first two seasons before being PutOnABus with hints that she'd return either as a villain or to be restored to normal. Later, it's implied she'd been dissected by [=PsiCorps=]. However, that may have been a lie to anger the main characters to make reading their minds easier. She's never heard from again.
28** The insectoid crime boss N'Grath appeared in a few first season episodes, but then dropped out of sight. A fifth season episode mentioned that N'Grath had been "taken down" (leaving it ambiguous whether that meant killed, arrested, or driven away).
29* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'':
30** The death of Galactica mechanic Jammer. After several episodes of development, Jammer becomes a Cylon sympathizer during their occupation of New Caprica. He is one of the few people to survive a suicide bomber's explosion in the third season premiere and later tells Cally to escape when a number of civilians are sent to be executed by firing squad. Despite this, he is cruelly airlocked by Starbuck and several other Galactica crew members while begging for his life in the teaser for the episode "Collaborators" and never mentioned again. Worst of all, Cally[[note]] who should have known it was Jammer who saved her life, seeing as how he worked with her for a long time and she knew his voice[[/note]] conveniently forgets about the person who saved her life.
31** Even worse was the death of Billy. He was practically a main character for the first two seasons and his WillTheyOrWontThey dynamic with Dualla was a major subplot, but he's rather abruptly killed midway through Season 2 during a filler episode by the VillainOfTheWeek.
32** A similar fate befell Colonel Fisk. Fisk was a prominent supporting character during the second season and seemed to be primed for a major role in future episodes after becoming the new commander of the ''Pegasus'', only to be unceremoniously murdered by yet another VillainOfTheWeek during an infamously bad filler episode and never mentioned again.
33* ''Series/TheBill'''s makers decided not to renew Jeff Stewart's contract as Reg Hollis, a move that may have resulted in his attempting suicide on set. Hollis, a highly popular character with more than 20 years in the show, gets written out off-screen with comments that he's resigned due to the death of PC Emma Keane. Not only has Hollis been around for every death in the show's history, but he's also been directly involved in the discovery that Des Taviner was responsible for the Sun Hill Fire ''and'' the loss of his girlfriend just as he was to propose to her. A move like that is completely out of character for him.
34* ''Series/BladeTheSeries'': Agent Ray Collins, a recurring secondary character who is slowly discovering the world of the vampires. Finally, in a late-season episode, he is paired up with Blade to hunt a pureblood vampire... and gets bitten by her when he lets his guard down. Blade is forced to stake him.
35* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' killed regular character Cally out of shot in an explosion during the opening seconds of the fourth season, with only a dubbed-in scream reused from an earlier episode to indicate it. This was reportedly because the actor had left it until after the previous season had been completed to announce that she wanted to leave (although that was mainly because the BBC waited until after the previous season had been completed before announcing they wanted another one).
36* ''Series/BlueBloods'': Linda is killed offscreen in a helicopter crash between seasons 7 and 8.
37* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
38** The Master returns in Season 8, only to be nonchalantly re-killed roughly one issue after his reappearance when Twilight punches him through the head.
39%% ** Ethan in Season 8.
40** Joyce died of an aneurysm, though it served to accentuate the DeathIsDramatic nature of the episode. Two other characters even suspect that the season's villain is behind it, but it's a completely natural death. The following episodes do deal with it quite a bit though.
41** Tara is killed accidentally when Warren randomly starts firing a gun. One [[MurphysBullet stray bullet]] flies through the window and hits her. Of course, the mundane nature of this death is what prompts Willow's FaceHeelTurn to become the true BigBad at the end of the season.
42** Done intentionally with Anya in the series finale. Joss Whedon has said he wanted to kill someone suddenly in the heat of battle without having a chance to mourn them. In contrast to Spike's HeroicSacrifice and the slow-motion close-up of Amanda falling to her death, Anya is seen only getting quickly slashed by a Bringer demon. Emma Caulfield had volunteered Anya to be killed this way but later regretted it when she saw how anticlimactic it looked on screen.
43* ''Series/{{Bull}}'': Cable is revealed to have driven off a collapsed bridge (the bridge was shown in the episode opening) and drowned in season 3 premiere. This convinces Bull to go back to his philanthropic self.
44* ''Series/BurnNotice'' introduced Anson Fullerton as TheManBehindTheMan to every previous villain on the show. In his introductory appearance, he arranges the death of Larry Sizemore, perhaps the series' most popular recurring villain. He frames Fiona for murder and has her sent to prison. He's revealed to be the man who murdered Michael's father. And to top it all off, he's the only MythArc villain to get through a season finale alive and free. This guy is the biggest, baddest...wait, just when he is about to be captured, we hear a shot and then see his dead body. The importance of his death is entirely ignored in favor of that of Michael's brother Nate, who was collateral damage in the crime. This is undoubtedly due to the audience's affection for Nate and the loss of the character.
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48* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'':
49** At the end of Season 3 ("All Hell Breaks Loose"), the eldest sister Prue is KilledOffForReal by a MonsterOfTheWeek. Prue had somehow lived through two deaths and bigger bads before, but this is what seemed to trump her in a quick one-second death that could have been easily avoided. It was originally just a cliffhanger ending (as Piper was hit with the same blast), but Shannen Doherty was fired between seasons and after debating about hiring [[TheOtherDarrin another actress to play Prue]], they just opened the season claiming she died because Leo didn't heal her in time.
50** The Source returns in Season 8 by one demon that convinces Wyatt to resurrect him. This guy had been the GreaterScopeVillain for the first four seasons and had to be vanquished three times to be killed for good. Piper realises his life force is tied to the demon who resurrected him and just casually blows her up with her exploding power.
51* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': Eddie [=LeBec=], one of Carla's most recurring love interests then husband. Though never being a cast regular, he was permanently written off the show when he (offscreen, of course), was run over ''by a Zamboni'' trying to push a fellow cast member of the ice show he worked at out of the way. In the ''very same episode'', it was revealed he had a mistress whom he also got pregnant and married (despite already being married to Carla obviously), leading an enraged Carla to reuse the name Tortelli. The producers of the show explained this turn of events at the time as [[ExecutiveMeddling test audiences not liking]] [[StatusQuoIsGod Carla being married]], until almost two decades later, both Jay Thomas (who played Eddie) and [[http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2006/07/kiss-of-death-for-eddie-lebec.html one of the writers]] revealed this was actually the result of the former being fired due to making an insulting remark about Rhea Perlman (who played Carla) on live radio (while Rhea happened to be listening, no less).
52* ''Series/ChicagoPD'': Julie Wilhite, Sheldon Jin, Nadia Decottis, Justin Voight, and Lexi and Alvin Olinski all suffer from this.
53** Wilhite is fatally shot by a drug kingpin because PoorCommunicationKills.
54** Jin is murdered by a corrupt IA sergeant due to YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness.
55** Nadia is in the wrong place at the wrong time when a sexually depraved serial killer is on the prowl.
56** Justin is murdered while trying to help a friend who owed money to a rather nasty criminal.
57** Lexi is killed in a high-rise apartment fire.
58** Olinski is fatally stabbed in prison.
59* ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman'': Gai Yuuki/Black Condor survived the whole ordeal against the Vyram and made it out of the final battle. Then 3 years later, he's stabbed by a mugger, managed to attend his friend's wedding enough to give them his blessings, then dies. No one, not even his friends, seemed to notice. Many Sentai fans argued how his death was handled, some say it's a refreshing change of how Toku heroes can die out of normal circumstances; some say it's badly handled for the sake of tributing [[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman Joe the Condor]] (who also dies in his series).
60* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' had Emmett the Buy More assistant manager being shot in the head at point-blank range in the Season 3 opener, despite being no threat at all to the enemy agent. An AssholeVictim for sure, and there are many who would quickly say that he deserved what he got, but others think it was a bit shocking given that, by and large, the Buy More crew was a separate world from the Spy world and any danger to them was usually done for slapstick. The flippant way Casey covered it up while pressing the Reset Button was a bit callous, even for him.
61* ''Series/{{Community}}'':
62** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in Episode 13 of season 1, "Investigative Journalism", as the first Spanish class of the new semester features a memorial for Señor Chang and a new teacher explaining he had [[BusCrash an unfortunate moped accident during the break]]. Señor Chang then enters the room, dismisses the teacher, saying she was a professional actress to teach the class that [[PlotArmor "[he] can never die"]].
63** But then by season 3, the show does it for real with [[spoiler: Starburns. Surprisingly subverted in the season finale, the character turned out to be studying Faking Death 101]].
64** "Intro To Intergluteal Numismatics" ends with [[spoiler: it finally being played straight with Pierce]].
65* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': The rebooted 16th season has two examples:
66** First, Rossi’s wife Krystall- whose appearances had become more frequent towards the end of the original run- is revealed to have died of an unknown illness sometime between seasons. (She does, however, make an appearance as a hallucination in the season 16 finale.)
67** Later on is the death of [[spoiler:Deputy FBI Director Doug Bailey]], a new character introduced for the reboot who plays a significant role in the season. Originally, the character acts as an opposing force to the BAU, but towards the end, becomes an ally. Right when the viewer is starting to like [[spoiler: Bailey, he]] goes into Voit’s house, begins trying to negotiate with him- and is unceremoniously shot between the eyes.
68** There was also one during season 13. The season 12 finale ended with a car accident, left open-ended as to the fates of the characters. Come the premiere of the next season, Stephen Walker is discovered to be the sole casualty. The character, the team’s newest addition at that point, lasted less than a full season and already has a replacement by the end of the episode.
69* ''Series/CSIMiami'': Rory Cochrane's character, Tim Speedle, also died nastily after Cochrane asked to be written out of the show. The writers really did a number on him, making Speed out to be careless with cleaning his weapon, which subsequently jammed during a shootout and resulted in his untimely death. Considering his status as a much-loved character, this quite literal character assassination might drive some to accuse the writers of dropping a bridge on the fans instead of their intended target. Making this all the more implausible was that in a previous episode, he had almost been killed when the gun jammed for EXACTLY THE SAME REASON - wouldn't he have learned his lesson?
70** Jesse Cardoza only lasted 25 episodes before being the lone casualty of the gas attack against the lab.
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74* ''Series/TheDefenders2017'':
75** The show spends six episodes building up Alexandra as a powerful, dangerous force to be reckoned with, and with a coy aversion to stating her full name to insinuate she's a CanonCharacterAllAlong. Then, in the middle of an impassioned speech about how she holds the Hand together and is not to be fucked with, Elektra abruptly impales her from behind with a pair of sai and decapitates her. Just like had previously been done with Cottonmouth in ''Series/LukeCage2016'', this was clearly intentional, to mess with an audience who didn't expect them to dispatch an award-caliber actress so anticlimactically.
76** At the start of the show, all of the Chaste's members have been wiped out, except for Stick, and he also is killed by Elektra. Unless Stick was mistaken or someone decides to rebuild it (which is unlikely), it's the end of the Chaste. It also means that Stone, the Chaste member seen from behind that Stick talked to in season 1 of ''Series/Daredevil2015'', is dead.
77* ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'' had a literal bridge dropping happen to Shane. While a bridge fell on Kirk, Shane falls off of it while tripping on LSD. Shane survives but is brain-damaged, his parents pull him from the school, and the kid who gave him the drugs (and watched him fall off the bridge, doing nothing) [[KarmaHoudini suffers no consequences]]. Shane is basically ignored and forgotten by the rest of the cast, and the show implies that this is poetic justice for how he (mostly) ignored and forgot a girl who he got pregnant. In ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'', his daughter tracks him down, and it turns out that he spent the rest of his life in a wretched [[BedlamHouse sanitarium for the mentally disabled]], abandoned by his family, and weeping over the girlfriend and child he never did enough for and never got to see.
78* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'': Actor Ryan Cooley, who played student J.T., wanted to leave the show to attend post-secondary education, so the character was written out. He was stabbed by a student from a fellow school, at the end of an episode revolving around a drunken house party, with no buildup whatsoever. Not only that but his best friend, Toby, makes a move on the girl he used to date. Everyone [[LampshadeHanging pointed out]] how senseless it was. Compare to Rick Murray, the school sociopath whose death was simply epic.
79** What about Terri? Her story arc involving an abusive boyfriend (Rick) culminates with her being pushed down and hitting her head on a rock. Students visit her comatose body in the hospital and afterwards she's never seen again. [[spoiler: It's mentioned in a deleted scene that she transferred to a private school later on, though]].
80** Adam, after being missing for a quarter of the season, returns in season 13, [[BackForTheDead only to get into a fatal car accident]]. Officially, this was done because Adam's actor, Jordan Todosey, decided to leave at the end of her contract though it caused an uproar among fans, largely because Adam was one of the few transgender characters on television.
81* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': After Karl Mayer was killed by a crashing plane, the next episode had Susan ''and'' Bree have "what if he lived" fantasies, in which he ended up cheating on each of them without remorse. As if to make sure they got across the message that his death was a good thing, the show avoided showing the reaction of his presumably devastated daughter by having her make only a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance at the end of the episode.
82** In Season 5, Edie Britt drove her car into a pole, but survives just long enough to be electrocuted, just to be certain she was gone for real this time, not just PutOnABus.
83* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' had a particularly infuriating example with Debra Morgan; after she's shot by the Brain Surgeon, it's almost a given she'll bounce back, especially since this isn't the first time she's been shot. And then, ''random blood clot, and she's brain dead''.
84* ''Series/DexterNewBlood'' killed Hannah, Harrison's adoptive mother and Dexter's former lover of (on and off) two years with a single line reference to cancer.
85* [[spoiler:Aunt Joan]] on ''Series/DocMartin''. Killed off offscreen with a heart attack in her jeep, which was found crashed into a gorse thicket.
86* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
87** The show is known for changing its lead actor every few seasons by having an experience that would otherwise be fatal trigger a regeneration, resulting in a new body and changed personality. In most cases, this is due to the lead actor voluntarily choosing to leave the series, usually providing the production staff with sufficient notice to craft a story around the regeneration. In one case (the transition from Creator/ColinBaker's [[Characters/DoctorWhoSixthDoctor Sixth Doctor]] to Creator/SylvesterMcCoy's [[Characters/DoctorWhoSeventhDoctor Seventh]]), the lead actor was fired (Colin Baker, understandably had absolutely no interest in returning to film a regeneration scene), and so without warning an episode began with the Doctor regenerating for an unknown reason (at least until we learned the why and where behind the regeneration a long time later), with [=McCoy=] playing the Before version (lying face-down and wearing an obvious wig) as well as the After version (briefly becoming TheOtherDarrin). Although the character didn't exactly die, a bridge was definitely dropped.
88*** This was referenced in [[MissingEpisode rejected BBC Book]] ''Campaign'', in which an alternate timeline Ian unexpectedly and semi-accidentally murders the Doctor by hitting his head on the TARDIS console. Then the Doctor regenerates, so he does it again. And again. [[BlackComedy And again...]]
89*** Fortunately, Big Finish Productions righted this wrong with a proper GrandFinale [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoSpecialTheLastAdventure audio play for the Sixth Doctor]], even if it was made a good 28 years after he left the screen. This just proves it's never too late to clean up the past.
90** The Seventh Doctor's own death also qualifies. After being depicted for most of his era in different media as the biggest [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] of the lot, he dies by being gunned down semi-accidentally by a bunch of GangBangers, after stepping out of the [=TARDIS=] without apparently checking the scanner or noticing the firefight going on outside.
91** The character of Romana underwent a surprise regeneration in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E1DestinyOfTheDaleks Destiny of the Daleks]]", as actress Creator/MaryTamm quit the series at the end of the previous season, and was replaced by Creator/LallaWard. Tamm had offered to return for ''Destiny of the Daleks'' in order to film a regeneration; she wasn't invited back and so Ward was introduced in a wacky sequence that remains a thorn in the side of some fans 30 years later.
92** Another character had a bridge dropped upon them in the 1980s. Kamelion was supposed to be a companion for the Fifth Doctor who could change his shape into other humanoids. For some reason, the robotic form of Kamelion was portrayed by... a real robot. Problems arose when ''the only person on the planet who knew how to operate the blasted thing died without telling anyone else how to work it''. This bridge was more out of necessity than anything else, but the fact that he barely shows up for two episodes and was cut out of another makes him a victim of a forgotten bridge at that.
93** And then there was the ''galaxy-scale'' bridge dropped on the Time Lords (including Romana, presumably) before the new series. It doesn't stop them from returning in ''The End of Time''. Then a bridge is dropped again. Sort of. Or it's the same bridge that they're sent to. [[TimeyWimeyBall Wibbly wobbly... timey wimey.]].
94** Some people regard the Fourth Doctor's death like this, as it was an uncommon variant of the HeroicSacrifice where he died in a [[LifeWillKillYou sudden, careless accident]] while failing to accomplish something, rather than the more normal kind where a character dies while achieving it. However, the story itself is well-written and telegraphs his upcoming death clearly, so it doesn't feel too sudden.
95* ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'' has this happen to Bennett. Then later to Paul Ballard. Big ouchies on ''both'' of those as neither of them had any warning or buildup.
96* ''Series/DowntonAbbey'': The third season dropped a bridge, or rather a car, on poor Matthew. This was a case of RealLifeWritesThePlot, as his actor wanted to leave the show, and since he'd already married his WillTheyOrWontThey partner Mary, the only choices were to break them up or kill him. Fans would never accept the former after they went through so much to be together, so the latter it was.
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100* ''Series/EastEnders'' gave Den Watts a dramatic death in 1989, then he came BackFromTheDead in 2003. Amid complaints from fans that his return was unbelievable, the actor was involved in an internet sex scandal, and so Den's estranged wife walloped him over the head with a doorstop, the end.
101* ''Series/{{ER}}'' had Romano. After getting his lower arm sliced off by the tail rotor of a helicopter in the previous season, the character dies when ''another'' helicopter goes out of control, explodes in midair, and lands on him. Ladies and gents, this is overkill at work. Although, it could be a writer's interpretation of karma or an ironic twist. Also somewhat lampshaded by Pratt suggesting that he must've done something awful to a helicopter in a previous life.
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105* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': DK dies unceremoniously midway through Season 4 when the VillainOfTheWeek tortures and kills him offscreen. It's particularly noticeable since he was the only recurring human character outside of Crichton's father and established as Crichton's best friend.
106* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': In the Season 3 finale, Zoom, the BigBad of the previous season who is now Black Flash, goes after Savitar; He's not there for half a minute before Killer Frost freezes him and he [[LiterallyShatteredLives shatters to pieces]]. This is especially sudden considering that sometime before this episode he killed the BigBad of the second season of ''Legends of Tomorrow''. (Though there is some ambiguity as to whether Zoom's true death was his transformation into Black Flash (making Black Flash a zombie) at the end of Season 2, or whether he was merely brainwashed in a seemingly undead state)
107* ''Series/ForeverKnight'' unceremoniously killed both police Cpt. Amanda Cohen and police detective Don Schanke off-screen in a plane crash, in the first episode of the series' last season, despite the fact that Schanke had been a long-time friend and colleague of protagonist Nicholas "Nick" Knight, the titular vampire police detective (night shift). Schanke was replaced by a new (female) partner for Nick, and the department's captain was replaced with an African-American male actor. The same year, Nick's vampiric lover Janette also left Toronto without explanation, ''came back'' as a human, was shot, and turned into a vampire again, only to leave the show forever. Actually, all but one of the main characters (the villainous [=LaCroix=])may or may not die at the end of the series, including possibly Nick himself.
108* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' had a sort of inverse. In this case, a character was killed off after he dropped off a bridge. Hilary's anchorman boyfriend Trevor decides to propose to her while bungee jumping on live television. Unfortunately, his bungee cord was a little too long.
109* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' offers an in-story example: Joey falsely brags in an interview about how he writes his own lines for his character Dr. Drake Remoray in the show ''Days of Our Lives''. This irritates the writers, who have his character walk into an open elevator shaft, giving him brain damage that ''only his character'' could have repaired. This is eventually undone when Joey lets go of his ego and begs the producer for another chance. He doesn't get the part of Drake's twin brother Striker, but Striker turns out to be a doctor capable of fixing Drake's brain damage.
110* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'':
111** Charlie Francis died in the season 2 premiere in a rather insultingly anti-climactic fashion - especially when one considers an entire season 1 episode was devoted to saving his life. As usual, ExecutiveMeddling is to blame. Between seasons 1 and 2, he is replaced by a shapeshifting impostor.
112** Bioterrorist mastermind David Robert Jones is killed off in an absurdly anti-climatic PortalCut in the last episode of the first series ("There's More Than One of Everything"). It's even worse that he was physically displaying his immunity to bullets in his showdown with Olivia at the portal only a few seconds ago. Though that one's later reversed by a handy timeline change.
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116* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
117** Ros started out as {{The Scrappy}}, a {{Canon Foreigner}} who was only put in the show as a blatant {{Ms Fanservice}} and occasionally {{The Watson}}. But then season 2 saw her {{Rescued From The Scrappy Heap}} and develop an actual storyline of her own. Then after only a couple appearances in season 3, she's abruptly killed offscreen to demonstrate the depravity of characters whose evilness was already ''very'' well established, and then promptly forgotten by everyone.
118** Roose Bolton, who's been a major character since the second season, and one of the main villains since the [[WhamEpisode penultimate episode]] of the third, surprisingly gets this treatment in the second episode of the sixth season. After all his scheming allows him to become Warden of the North, his bastard son, [[InvincibleVillain Ramsay]], casually stabs him in the heart after a true-born son is born to him. He doesn't get to say or do anything, he just quickly bleeds to death in the middle of his own keep, and afterwards no one who served him seems to [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch care how he died.]]
119** In the same episode, Balon Greyjoy, who is positioned early on as a potentially major player in the War of the Five Kings and is responsible for Theon becoming one of the main antagonists of the second season, and who hadn't been seen for the last two seasons, returns and quickly gets a bridge dropped on him after all of two scenes. Or rather gets dropped ''off'' a bridge by his brother, a character previously unknown to show watchers. This is a rare case of a character's death in the books being even more abrupt; there, he fell off a bridge ''off-page.''
120** Shaggydog, Osha, and Rickon Stark. Here, we have the long, really long-lost youngest member of the Stark family, his direwolf, and the Badass wildling protector. The last we knew of them was that they went to Last Hearth, House Umber's bastion. But then in Season 6, they revealed to us that Smalljon Umber betrayed them, killed the direwolf offscreen (offering its head to Ramsay Bolton), and gave the woman and the boy to Ramsay as prisoners. Later, Ramsay was preparing to have some private time with Osha, who sneakily took a knife, hoping to use it against him, but he guessed her intentions, quickly took the knife, and stabbed her. Rickon on the other hand, in the 9th episode, was brought to the battlefield between Bolton's and Jon Snow's forces. Ramsay told him to run to his brother along but then he started shooting arrows until finally one of them pierced him through the chest. Viewers were not pleased.
121** Rakharo is sent off scouting and only his head returns. The producers have hinted this was at the actor's request.
122** Dagmer and the rest of Theon's crew go unmentioned for a whole season until it's offhandedly mentioned that Ramsay had them flayed.
123** Summer, Bran's direwolf. While technically a HeroicSacrifice, the scene only lasts a couple of seconds, with barely any reaction from the other characters, and is overshadowed by the respective sacrifices of Hodor and Leaf, which happened in the same episode and received far more focus. Combine that with the aforementioned offscreen death of Shaggydog only a few episodes earlier, and it really feels like he was only killed because the direwolves were difficult to film and the showrunners didn't want to deal with them any more than they have to.
124** Rorge was never the most important character, either in the books or the show, but his death in the show is almost impressive in how abrupt and anti-climactic it is.
125** Rhaegal, Daenerys's dragon, randomly is struck by a bunch of scorpion ballistas and fell to his death into the ocean. It's particularly ridiculous when you remember that he was still recovering from injuries sustained in the Dance of the Dragons, and they made him survive the battle only to kill him immediately after just for shock value.
126** Qyburn tries to get in the way of [[MemeticMutation Cleganebowl]] by trying to get Gregor to back down from fighting Sandor and go back to protecting Cersei. The result is a five-second death scene straight out of nowhere where the Mountain just dashes his head against the wall and throws him away like trash before resuming.
127** Cersei, one of the most powerful and effective villains of the series - and one of the few to survive eight seasons - ultimately dies anti-climatically putting up no fights, having a minor VillainousBreakdown and simply getting crushed when [[RocksFallEveryoneDies the Red Keep collapses]].
128** Brynden Tully, "The Blackfish", was an EnsembleDarkHorse, and technically goes out in a LastStand once the castle he was guarding gets invaded by Lannister forces. The problem? Not even does his death happen off-screen, but we don't even get his corpse shown.
129** The Night King and the White Walkers. Built up from the very first scene of the show as the ultimate supernatural threat but their entire race is [[OneHitKill OHKO’d]] by a character that had just recently found out they existed [[DiskOneFinalBoss halfway through the last season.]]
130* ''Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace''': Madeline Wool, who played Liz Asher in the ShowWithinAShow of the same name, disappeared sometime between the original taping of the show and the show being broadcast, hence why she's not being interviewed like the rest of the main cast. She's said to be missing, presumed dead, with an emphasis on 'dead'. [[spoiler:It's strongly implied Dean Learner killed her.]]
131* ''Series/GossipGirl'': Bart Bass is hit by a car offscreen. To add insult to injury, he was on his way to try and reconcile with his wife Lily.
132* ''Series/GreysAnatomy'': Guess it seemed like having George PutOnABus wasn't enough for the showrunners, so they decided to throw him under it as well. Literally. Didn't see that one coming.
133** And how about poor Lexie. Getting crushed by plane debris, in the middle of a forest, ''right after Mark confesses his undying love for her''. [[SarcasmMode Real nice, Shonda]].
134** In "How to Save a Life" [[spoiler: Derek winds up getting hit by a truck after stopping in the middle of the road.]] To top it all off, [[spoiler: he actually has a chance to be saved, but is transferred to a facility with incompetent trainees who fail to discover he's suffered brain damage in time, which leads him to be declared braindead.]]
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138* ''Series/HancocksHalfHour'' parodied it in the episode 'The Bowmans'. Tony Hancock's character, Joshua Merryweather, has been written out of the eponymous soap, but overwhelming public reaction forces the producers to bring him back. Tony Hancock accepts only if given full script approval, and the next episode features every other character walking across a field and falling down an abandoned mine shaft.
139* ''{{Series/Heartbeat}}'': Pick an Aidensfield GP. Any Aidensfield GP. One drowned after wandering into a river to retrieve a fishing rod. One burnt to death after running into a burning building to save a boy who'd already been rescued by someone else. One fell off a horse she was trying to save from rustlers who'd have been arrested anyway if she'd just stood there and done nothing. One was blown up by a schoolboy who was upset because [[DisproportionateRetribution his dog had been run over]]. Only Kate Rowan's failed battle with leukaemia managed to be a genuine TearJerker. (There was another one who bucked the trend by staying alive long enough to be PutOnABus.)
140* ''Series/{{Highlander}}'': Duncan rescues Tessa from the renegade watcher Pallin Wolf. [[NotQuiteSavedEnough Immediately after that]], she's shot by a mugger and dies.
141** Even more awkward is the handling of Richie Ryan's death in the fifth season finale 'Archangel'. Richie had spent the past season or so [[TookALevelInBadass Taking A Level In BadAss]] after a close call when a temporarily-insane Duncan nearly took his head. He is shown to triumph over a few Immortals and is said to have slain a number of other enemy Immortals off-screen. And he tells Duncan that he's prepared just in case Duncan were to go crazy again. However, all this is forgotten in 'Archangel', where Duncan, being tricked into seeing images of his old enemies by a [[AssPull Zoroastrian demon not previously known to exist in the Highlander universe]] accidentally takes Richie's head when Richie (who KNOWS something's not right and something's causing Duncan to see things that aren't there) just [[IdiotBall walks in on the scene]] and gets his head cut off.
142* ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' wrote out Creator/JonPolito's character Steve Crosetti [[ExecutiveMeddling at the behest of the network]], who wanted another female character in the show; the producers promised him that they would write the character back in later in the season. Not believing them, Polito went to the newspapers and slagged off the production crew for bending to the network's wishes. As a result, his character committed suicide offscreen - the one thing he had asked the producers not to do. However, he mended his bridges and returned as an afterlife spirit in the ''Homicide'' TV movie that wrapped up the series.
143* ''Series/HoratioHornblower'' had Lieutenant Bracegirdle. A fairly major character in Series 1, disappears for Series 2 but is reintroduced as an important character for the third series ... only to have the boat he was in getting hit with an exploding shell and kill everyone on board.
144* ''Series/{{House}}'' had Kutner KilledOffForReal because Kal Penn joined the White House staff and asked to quit the show. While the character's death is presumed to be suicide, House had [[NeverSuicide his doubts]]. Later in the season, House starts having hallucinations of Amber. In the season finale, he hallucinates Kutner as well. Executive Producer David Shore said, "this was the story that allowed us to really have the greatest impact on House in particular... If Penn had come to us and said, "I've been offered this great part on 'CSI' ... then it would have been autoerotic asphyxiation or something like that."
145* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': [[spoiler:The eponymous Mother dies from an unspecified illness in the last five minutes of the finale]].
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149* ''Series/TheITCrowd''
150** Parodied once for a non-returning character: "Whatever happened to Richmond?" "He... got... scurvy."
151** Played straight when [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Denholm Reynholm]] tosses himself out the window in the first scene of a season 2 episode when the police come to talk to him about "irregularities in the pension fund."
152* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'':
153** Country Mac, Mac's cousin who immediately wins over The Gang, dies at the end of his debut episode in a low-speed motorcycle accident.
154** During the Gang's [[VacationEpisode trip to Ireland]] in Season 15, [[spoiler:Charlie meets his biological father and former penpal, Shelley Kelly]]. The finale, [[spoiler:"The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain,"]] opens with [[spoiler:Charlie revealing Shelley's lifeless body and asking for help fulfilling a family tradition by throwing it off a cliff into the ocean]].
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158* ''Series/KevinCanWait'': In an attempt to recapture the success of ''Series/TheKingOfQueens'', CBS decided to fire Creator/KevinJames' TV wife Erinn Hayes and replace her with Leah Remini for season two. In the season premiere, it is mentioned in passing that Hayes' character had died a year earlier, for unexplained reasons. This move on CBS' part was controversial enough that it has been considered one of the reasons for the show's eventual cancellation.
159* ''Series/TheKilling'': In season 3, Bullet is very suddenly KilledOffscreen by the serial killer between episodes, without any warning. She's alive at the end of one episode and found dead in a car trunk in the next.
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163* ''Series/LALaw'': The character Roz steps into an elevator. The elevator isn't there and she falls down the shaft to her death. The end.
164** Widely noted by the press at the time as Diana Muldaur, the actress playing Roz, "getting the shaft". Perhaps a [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]]?
165* ''Series/LasVegas'' had a tendency to kill off the Montecito's owners at a rate of about one per season, but none quite so bizarrely as when Monica Mancuso was carried off of the roof of the casino by a strong gust of wind.
166* ''Series/LawAndOrder'':
167** Alexandra Borgia's death reeks of this trope. Her character was kidnapped, beaten, and stuffed in a car trunk and abandoned in the woods, where she choked on her own vomit. Her brutal murder drives the last half of that episode, and then she was never mentioned again. This was because Annie Parisse left to pursue a movie career. Apparently, Dick Wolf told her, "Oh, thank you for coming in early. You don't mind if we kill you, do you?"
168** There's also Max Greevey, who died ''offscreen'' in the cold opening for the 2nd season premiere after Creator/GeorgeDzundza left the show. Adding insult to injury, it wasn't even Dzundza we see fall - it was a body double (the producers couldn't convince Dzundza to come back even for just a death episode).
169** Total inversion with Claire Kincaid, in an episode without any investigation, but following the actions of the four leads after having witnessed an execution, Kincaid offers a ride home to a very drunk Detective Briscoe (Creator/JerryOrbach). On the way there, her car is struck by a drunk driver and she's killed. Briscoe is clearly devastated, and [=McCoy=]'s arc for the subsequent season is driven by this loss.
170%%** ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' has ADA Kim Greyleck, who went on a business trip to Washington and [[LongBusTrip never came back.]] She was abysmal, and they brought back Alex Cabot, so no one gave a damn.
171** ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'': In the Season 7 finale, Det. Robert Goren's mentor [[BrokenPedestal Declan Gage]] collaborates with ArchEnemy [[DepravedBisexual Nicole Wallace]] to kill Det. Goren's brother [[BusCrash Frank]]. After that's been done, he kills Nicole as well. Both deaths occur offscreen, and Nicole's identity is confirmed through DNA testing.
172%% *** Not to mention [[spoiler: Danny Ross.]]
173* ''Series/{{Lexx}}'' had Zev. In the second episode of the second season, the lone female on the Lexx spacecraft is caught on a medical station when her friend and captain, Stanley, has to go for an operation. She is tortured for the majority of the episode by a doctor who is trying to steal the Lexx's activation key from her, but she escapes and [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices herself]] seconds later to save the life of the undead assassin, Kai, with whom she is deeply in love. She ends up as a pile of goo, and [[TheNthDoctor eventually reforms into Xev (played by Xenia Seeberg)]]. Eva Habermann (who played Zev) wanted out of the show due to wishing to pursue other projects, but her death scene was a particularly mean-spirited way to go.
174* ''Series/LipService'': [[spoiler: Cat]] is abruptly killed off in a random car accident.
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178* ''Series/{{MASH}}'': The death of [[ActorLeavesCharacterDies Lt. Colonel Henry Blake]] seems to be this, but is actually a subversion. After getting to go home, the last line of the episode announces that his plane has been shot down, with no survivors. The reason it's a subversion is that even though it was a senseless death, it was perfectly in line with everything that the show was about, i.e., WarIsHell, and people die indiscriminately, regardless of whether they are important people or not. So his death, though anti-climactic in theory, was not inappropriate or unsatisfying, but very appropriate, well-done, and respected by viewers.[[note]]Of course, it wasn't respected by viewers in the '70s when it actually ''happened'', but that was because it is the UrExample of this trope in TV comedies.[[/note]]
179* ''Series/McMillanAndWife'' was continued for one season as ''[=McMillan=]'' after Susan Saint James left, with the explanation that Sally had died in a plane crash, along with their infant son (who was himself mostly a plot device to explain Saint James' pregnancy a season earlier, and never seen). Aside from one or two dialogue swipes at recovering from grief and getting back into the dating game, Mac didn't seem too shaken up about the whole 'lost the True Love that propelled the entire series' thing.
180* ''Series/TheMentalist'' did this to recurring antagonist Bret Stiles. After multiple seasons of establishing a complex dynamic between him and Jane and cultivating an air of mystery and danger around Stiles (and his cult Visualize) in general, Stiles is unceremoniously killed in an explosion just after Jane had eliminated him as a Red John suspect.[[note]]Ironically, Stiles was played by Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, who also played the character responsible for the {{Trope Namer|s}}.[[/note]]
181* ''Series/{{Merlin 2008}}'':
182** Poor Lancelot. At first, the writers gave him a pretty great death: he [[HeroicSacrifice willingly sacrifices himself]] by stepping into the spirit world in order to save Merlin's life and fulfill his vow to Guinevere to keep Arthur safe from harm. Arthur subsequently has a memorial service in which he is remembered as the best and noblest knight of Camelot. Unfortunately, the writers couldn't leave well enough alone, and Lancelot is resurrected by Morgana in order to stir up trouble between Arthur and Guinevere in the lead-up to their wedding. This Zombie!Lancelot is a slave to Morgana's will who exists only to do her bidding, and after [[MindRape Mind Raping]] Guinevere with an enchanted bracelet, he ensures that Arthur catches them making out, leading to the dissolution of their relationship and Gwen's exile from Camelot. He is then ordered by Morgana to kill himself, and does so in the grimy prison cell into which he's been thrown, to be remembered not as a hero but as a traitor, whose last act on earth was to destroy the life of the woman he adored, and who died not out of love for his friends, but because Morgana told him to. For a man who was characterized as the epitome of honour and self-sacrifice, it's probably the worst imaginable way they could have killed him off. Even ''Morgana'', the instigator of the whole affair, notes at one point that she feels almost sad to be doing this to him. Made all the worse by the fact that only Merlin attends his funeral, where it's hinted that he was aware of what he was doing and was powerless to stop it. ''Ouch.''
183** Uther Pendragon spends the first three seasons as a major source of conflict - he's a tyrant who would execute Merlin if he knew about his magic but he's also NecessarilyEvil to keep control in the kingdom until Arthur is ready to become the good king. In the third episode of Season 4, a featured extra tries to kill Arthur at court, Uther gets hurt saving him and dies when Merlin's attempt at a healing spell is sabotaged by Morgana. It comes across as the writers suddenly deciding they couldn't think of anything more to do with him (he'd just started what looked like an interesting arc of coping with Morgana's FaceHeelTurn) and felt he should be written out.
184** Agravaine is a non-deliberate case. His death scene is a dramatically staged moment that was an important point in Merlin's character development... but he was killed off without anyone ever learning why he was a villain in the first place and his death scene wasn't so much about him dying as Merlin realizing just how strong he is.
185** The series finale killed off quite a few of the main characters, but Morgana's death was particularly anticlimactic. After learning that Arthur has been mortally wounded and Merlin intends to heal him at the lake of Avalon, she sets off to stop him. When she finally catches them, she throws one spell at Merlin and then says a couple of mean things before he skewers her with Excalibur, and she dies without affecting the main plot at all. It was as though the creators wrote the episode, realized it was the last one and then squeezed in Morgana's death at the last minute because they wouldn't have a chance to do it later. Particularly egregious because in series 4 Morgana had a vision of her death which was much better - her wounded and slowly dying on the field of a fiery battle (presumably Camlann) while Old Merlin delivers a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to her. Most of the other prophetic visions in ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' came true, and trying to avert this one served as Morgana's main motivation in series 4 and 5, so you really have to wonder what they were thinking when they didn't use it.
186* ''Series/Millennium1996'' had the fates of Catherine Black and Lara Means, who were written out as part of a [[{{Retool}} Retooling]] of the series, although the latter was a matter of GoMadFromTheRevelation rather than death.
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190* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'':
191** [[spoiler: Caitlin Todd]] was killed at the end of S2 by a sniper headshot, ostensibly to show how much [[spoiler:Ari]] wanted to make Gibbs suffer, but really because the actress was tired of the grueling schedule of the show and wanted out. Also qualifies as a literal WhamShot, because the entire episode was based around the character protecting Gibbs, and they take a bullet right before the headshot, only to reveal the bulletproof vest.
192** [[spoiler: Ziva David]] is killed in an off-screen mortar attack ''two'' years after leaving the show, setting up [[spoiler: Tony's]] final story arc. Prior to leaving, [[spoiler: Creator/CoteDePablo]] had dragged out contract negotiations and left mere weeks before production of a new season had to begin and the cast and crew weren't very happy with the abrupt exit and how the first half of that season had to be retooled to accommodate the exit of a major character and the subsequent introduction of a new regular. [[spoiler: This later turned into a case of FakingTheDead, as Ziva returned some years later alive and well.]]
193** Season 18 pulls this twice. The first episode after the time skip from 2019 to 2021 reveals that [[spoiler:Breena Palmer]] was among the many casualties of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, and a mere two episodes later [[spoiler:Emily Fornell has a relapse and dies of a drug overdose]].
194* ''Series/{{Neighbours}}'':
195** The three members of the Bishop family were the only casualties of a crashed plane, which they only boarded at the last minute. Their family and friends took about three days to get over the loss.
196** Also Connor, who was either killed by Paul Robinson's [[EvilTwin crazy son]] or went on a LongBusTrip overseas. (He eventually turned up for a four-week guest stint six years later where the question of why he abruptly disappeared without contacting anyone was given an appropriate {{Handwave}}.)
197** Bridget Parker's death fills the 'awkward' part of this trope: She died as the result of a mysterious rampaging white horse running out in front of her car and causing it to crash. The horse is never seen, heard of, or mentioned again. (Considering her family was in the car, you'd think they would have looked into that; possibly even sue the owner of the horse for negligence causing death?)
198** Speaking of horses, they killed off Libby Kennedy's husband Drew Kirk by having him fall off a horse shortly after her marriage. They also had Toadie's first wife Dee Bliss die in a car crash shortly after their marriage - Neighbours writers don't seem to like people living happily ever after... (Dee was another one who, after a gap of sixteen years, got [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] into JustHiding for the sake of a five-week guest stint and a later three month guest stint.)
199** They seem to especially love having teen marriages get ended by death. Ringo Brown was run over and killed a month after marrying Donna, when they were meant to be moving to the States together. (She went without him.) Hendrix Greyson was killed off less than a week after marrying Mackenzie, by a very awkward confluence of no fewer than three "very rare" medical conditions.
200* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': [[spoiler:Rick became a victim of "The O'Connell Curse" when he got a ''satellite'' dropped on him]].
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203[[folder:O]]
204* ''Series/OnceUponATime''
205** The show unceremoniously killed off [[spoiler:Greg]] and [[spoiler:Tamara]], who were the BigBadDuumvirate in the second half of Season 2, in the first half-hour of the Season 3 premiere. It was essentially to show that they were the pawns of the ''real'' BigBad. Tamara at least was given a last-minute redemption by sacrificing herself to get Henry to safety.
206** Zelena, the villain of the second half of Season 3, is given a shockingly easy defeat when Regina uses Light Magic to de-power her. She's then stabbed by Rumpelstiltskin while defenceless. Of course, it turns out she didn't really die and came back fully powered.
207** And, in the third to last episode of Season 5, [[spoiler: King Arthur]], BigBad of the season's first half, who was last seen imprisoned near the arc's end, unexpectedly reappears at the beginning of the episode only to have his neck snapped by Hades, BigBad of the current arc. Ironically this happens ''on'' a bridge. Subverted in that he is prominently seen in the underworld after this, where he does a HeelFaceTurn, helps defeat Hades, and presumably overthrows Cruella as the new leader of the underworld to set things right there.
208** Mr. Hyde was introduced as a potential villain of Season 6. In only the fourth episode of the season, it's revealed that Dr. Jekyll was the really evil one and he's easily killed by stabbing - with the result that Hyde dies as well.
209** The Black Fairy is hyped up as the biggest threat the show has ever seen. She ultimately never even fights Emma, as Rumpelstiltskin kills her with a wand that was designed to be her undoing. She doesn't even take part in the final battle between Emma and Gideon.
210* ''Series/OnceUponATimeInWonderland'': After all the build-up and menace, [[spoiler:the Jabberwocky has '''one''' scene in the GrandFinale, in which Jafar pins her to a wall with the Vorpal Blade and leaves her imprisoned yet again]].
211* ''Series/{{Oz}}'':
212** Kareem Saïd is killed completely out of nowhere by a fake reporter. This happened 3 episodes into the final season. Given the fact that Said was one of the most likable and human characters in the show, seeing him go is extremely gut-wrenching.
213** The second season premiere reveals that major villain Scott Ross and prominent recurring character Ed Hunt had been killed when the National Guard raided the prison to quell a riot at the end of the previous season.
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217* ''Series/{{Plebs}}'' had the actor playing Stylax decide to leave in the gap between 3 and 4, so in the pre-credits sequence of the first episode of series 4 -with the aid of a little CGI and another actor in an unconvincing wig- they literally dropped a giant block of marble on the character; crushing him to death.
218* ''Series/Preacher2016'' ends Season 1 with [[spoiler:a methane gas explosion that razes the entire town of Annville to the ground, presumably killing everyone there off-screen. This includes the four main characters who hadn't left yet and can't regenerate - Emily, Donnie, Sheriff Root, and Odin Quincannon. WordOfGod states that they have been KilledOffForReal and that there are no survivors]].
219* ''Series/PrisonBreak'' had James Wistler, who got killed ''out of nowhere'', just so the PostScriptSeason plot could be extended even further. Granted, it does give some cool impression of AnyoneCanDie, but still...
220* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' had a little girl and Number Six's love interest fall down bottomless pits.
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224* ''Series/{{Reno 911}}'' plays this for laughs. The deputies are riding on the side of a police car that has been converted into a float, but they are late and speeding so they crash into a building. On the next season opener, Deputies Johnson, Garcia, and Kimball apparently died as a result of "burning up in the fire," but none of the other characters have a scratch on them and Dangle can't even remember their names.
225* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': Maggie is briefly taken hostage by some random crazy dude who shows up from nowhere, gets accidentally stabbed ''in the leg'', and then she bleeds to death.
226* ''Series/RobinHood'':
227** Maid Marian, which not only led to so many complaints that the BBC had to resort to automated emails of apology but also the show's imminent cancellation (despite in-show attempts to set up for a fourth season). In the climax of the second season Marian puts herself between an injured and helpless King Richard and Guy of Gisborne and, after he insists that he will take her by force rather than take her alternative of killing the sheriff and having her by her consent, begins to shout "I love Robin Hood! I'm going to marry Robin Hood!" Guy, who has been going through significant CharacterDevelopment for love of her, responds by impaling her on his sword. To make matters worse, to ''get'' Marian to this point, the writers first make her act wildly OutOfCharacter by having her attempt to assassinate the sheriff, deprive her of a weapon to defend herself with, and conveniently remove Robin from the scene despite the fact he was right on her tail only a few seconds ago. And why did this happen? According to creators Foz Allen and Dominic Mingella: shock value. Yes, Maid freaking Marian herself was killed off for nothing more than cheap shock value.
228** You also have Carter, who only showed up in a few episodes but was still a favorite character. He is a master swordsman and archer, rivaling even Robin himself, and has been fighting in the Holy Land for a while. Then he gets stabbed by the Sheriff because he blindly ran into a building without looking first. He ''literally'' runs into the Sheriff's sword. He's not mentioned again.
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232* ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' randomly killed Derek Reese at the hands of a newly arrived Terminator early in one episode, with the show's return for a third season questionable. We even get a couple of nice closeups of the bullet hole right in the middle of his forehead to make it clear he's KilledOffForReal.
233* ''Series/{{Satisfaction}}'' killed Tippi, as the actor was going overseas to pursue other opportunities. This is not the first time this character had faced death; she was nearly killed by a tranquilizer administered by a mortician with a fetish for dead people.
234* ''Series/SaulOfTheMoleMen'', as an AffectionateParody of '50s and '60s low-budget monster movies, naturally had a lot of gruesome and arbitrary out-of-nowhere death scenes. A standout example, as well as a near-literal one, is [[TheMedic Dr. Blob]] in the finale, who, ''after'' the heroes escape from the villains, is randomly squished by a spaceship boarding ramp for no reason other than upping the body count by one at the last second.
235* Subverted on ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''. When George's fiance Susan dies of chemical poisoning (thanks to the cheap wedding envelopes George bought), he and the other four main characters react disturbingly callously and unsympathetically. However, in the following episodes, we see her ''parents'' grieving her death and even founding The Susan Ross Foundation in her honor.
236* ''Series/{{Skins}}'': Near the end of Series 4, Freddie is suddenly beaten to death with a baseball bat by Effy's [[StalkerWithaCrush crazed psychiatrist]], who was introduced in the same episode. Chris's death in the earlier series was actually believing and heartfelt, while Freddie's felt abrupt and mean-spirited. Not to mention that the series ends just after Cooke discovers his death, with no chance to see the others' reactions.
237* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'':
238** Perhaps the most unpleasant example: in one season opener, we find out that the character Wade Wells has been abducted by ugly alternate-dimension aliens... for breeding purposes.
239** Another unpleasant example was Professor Arturo; over the course of one episode he had his brains partially sucked out, was then shot dead, and was then left on an Earth which was destroyed by radioactive pulsars. And all this ''after'' the character came down with a terminal disease leaving him with months left to live anyway.
240** Fans insist that the deceased Arturo was, in fact, his "evil" twin due to the AmbiguousCloneEnding of a previous season's episode in which two versions of Arturo fight and we don't know which one was left stranded and which one ended up traveling with the group. Wade Wells, meanwhile, was written out by being abducted by the evil alien Kromaggs, and eventually [[BackForTheDead returned long enough]] to be {{Mercy Kill}}ed.
241** Don't forget the Mallory brothers. Thanks to an experiment by a MadScientist, Quinn gets merged with another version of him (played by a different actor), while Collin gets "unstuck" and is forced to travel between worlds for the rest of his life. Throughout the season, there are attempts at separating the Quinns. In the penultimate episode, the same mad scientist tries but reveals that too much time has passed. Only one may survive, so the group reluctantly chooses the new guy.
242* ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'': In Season 4, recurring character Kozik had just enough time to say "Shit!" before LandMineGoesClick and he winds up in about a hundred different places at once.
243* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'':
244** Carson Beckett's untimely demise. Some random Alien device that causes anyone affected by it to grow a rather malignant exploding tumor was found and activated by two unfortunate no-names. He died ''after'' removing and passing it to someone else, mostly because he couldn't walk away fast enough. Then Carson (actually, his clone) was brought back, and the explosion incident is almost never mentioned again. Also, this Carson is somehow better at using the control chair than the original (he's engaged in a space battle in the series finale between Atlantis and a super-hive).
245** They didn't do a much better job with Elizabeth Weir. Initially, she was captured by replicators in a HeroicSacrifice. Fair enough, except that the team ''knew she wasn't dead'', only a prisoner. In a wildly OOC moment, John, her [[{{ShipTease}} best friend]] and the epitome of [[{{UndyingLoyalty}} We-Don't-Leave-Anyone-Behind]] ChronicHeroSyndrome, made ZERO effort to go back and save her. She returned several times as a clone and later full replicator...only to be frozen in space in another unnecessary sacrifice. Made worse in that another replicator had previously been frozen in space and the team had resurrected them! Apparently, John was too busy drowning in guilt to remember that.
246* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
247** Something similar to Carson happened to Janet Fraiser, but it was meant to be a subversion. That season was supposed to be the last one, the writers thought they were writing her out of 2 episodes (the 2-part season finale) and giving the character a respectful death, instead of 3 seasons and 2 episodes and a seemingly insignificant death. Also, even though the death seems random, it was actually a HeroicSacrifice in order to save the life of a wounded airman; the episode was even called "Heroes".
248** Lord Yu was quite possibly the most interesting Goa'uld System Lord, and he gets killed off by the Replicators in the first five minutes of one episode.
249* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' had Jadzia Dax randomly killed by Gul Dukat in mid-prayer without getting a shot at self-defense. This came about after her actress Creator/TerryFarrell--who'd just been cast as the female lead on ''Series/{{Becker}}''--threatened to quit unless Jadzia was downgraded to a recurring character for the final season. The producers didn't take her threat seriously, and so deliberately half-assed her death scene with the intention of later doing a quick rewrite to have her just knocked out, only for this to backfire when it turned out that Farrell ''wasn't'' bluffing.
250* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' had Trip commit suicide in the series finale to rid the ship of 3 dim-witted space pirates, despite a full squad of [=MACOs=] being on board. The novels retconned this: The entire incident was staged by Section 31, and has not been declassified yet. Oh, the holodeck introduces many, many plot holes.
251* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''
252** Tasha Yar was unceremoniously killed off in the episode "Skin of Evil". Creator/DeniseCrosby had asked to be written out. She came back as Tasha in the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise", which [[TakeThatUs mentioned that Tasha had died a senseless death]], and gave the character a chance to [[HeroicSacrifice exit with more dignity.]] It's of note that Tasha's death was an attempt by the writers to actually ''subvert'' a trope... the one that says that it's always the nameless redshirts that are killed as an example of the evil alien's power. Unfortunately, Tasha's death came off as far ''too'' senseless (not to mention stuck in a really bad episode) and the fan outcry was such that it had to be revisited. Later, we learn that Tasha's "do-over" death didn't take; instead, she was captured by the Romulans and used as a sex slave for years before finally dying another quite ignominious death. And bizarrely, this was actually the idea of her own actress, who wanted to come back on the show and invented a way that she could play Tasha's [[IdenticalGrandson Identical Daughter]].
253** A nonlethal bridge was dropped on Worf in "Ethics". He's paralyzed, not in glorious combat, not in some heroic blaze of glory... but by a falling barrel in a cargo hold. And keep in mind [[TheWorfEffect this is a Klingon]] we're talking about, stronger and more resilient than most humans.
254* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
255** Lucifer and Michael themselves, though they didn't actually die. After fully two seasons of apocalyptic build-up, they both get dropped in a hole and left to rot. They never even got to throw a punch at each other, much less have their epic world-ending battle.
256** One episode features a whole bunch of immensely powerful pagan gods who are pretty savagely slaughtered by Lucifer. Most of them didn't even die onscreen. And while Gabriel's death was a little more dramatic, it was still pretty anti-climatic, all things considered. As with the finale, he didn't even get to throw a punch before Lucifer skewered him.
257** Subverted in the season 5 finale. Lucifer explodes Castiel with a click of his fingers and then breaks Bobby's neck... but they get resurrected. For a moment though, it looks like the show has just killed off two of its most popular characters in the blink of an eye.
258** Season 7 has seen this trope rather brutally applied to Castiel - after his big AGodAmI moment in the Season 6 finale seemed to set him up as the BigBad for Season 7, he spends one single episode going kill-crazy, starts to worry about his own rapidly deteriorating mental state, releases all the extra power he absorbed, and just when you think he's going to be okay, he promptly gets possessed by the actual BigBad who then informs Sam and Dean that Castiel is dead. And since that happened, his name barely came up, despite the fact that he was pretty much the closest and most loyal friend the Winchesters had after Bobby. [[BackFromTheDead He got better (again)]].
259** This happens a lot on Supernatural. Due to the AnyoneCanDie nature of the show, plenty of popular MauveShirt characters end up dead, usually to advance the plot, often in a quick and anticlimactic manner. Anna was zapped by Michael after vanishing for half a season and suddenly turning evil, Kevin ends up killed by Gadreel in a mid-season break, Samuel Campbell gets shot in the head by Sam, the list goes on.
260** Fan favourites Bobby and Charlie both eventually got KilledOffForReal in ways that were jarring mainly because their characters had survived so much worse by that point. Bobby dies from a totally non-supernatural bullet wound to the head that could have been fixed easily by any passing angel (if only there'd been one around), while Charlie is chased down and killed off-screen by the demon of the week right after being acknowledged as a fully-fledged hunter who really ought to have been equal to the fight.
261** In the GrandFinale, Dean dies after being impaled on a screw during a fight with vampires, and Sam later dies an old man after making a family.
262* ''Series/SwampThing'' had a cross between this and PutOnABusToHell. As said by [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]]:
263-->"The series also introduced characters like the Kipp family, as well as a completely new incarnation of Anton Arcane played by Mark Lindsay Chapman. A young boy named Jim Kipp, played by Jess Ziegler, was intended to appeal to the young audience. However, after the first 12 episodes, a decision was made to return the series back to a darker theme seen in the original Swamp Thing film. Consequently, the story had Kipp abducted by a South American child stealing ring and never appear again."
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267* ''Series/Teachers2001'' saw the departure of the last two members of the original cast, who also happened to play fan favourites, at the end of the third season. As an act of rather bitter revenge, the fourth season opens on the graves of their characters being pissed on by the school's headmaster.
268* ''Series/That70sShow'': When Bret Harrison, who was intended to appear in the last season, resigned due to his commitment to ''Reaper'', his character Charlie fell off the Point Place water tower and, unlike every other character who ever did that on the show, died. He obviously was quickly forgotten: in the finale, twenty-one episodes after seeing the death of a new friend, Kelso doesn't hesitate to jump from the water tower again. It's lampshaded during the credits of the episode by having Donna, Fez, and Kelso sitting on the water tower lamenting Charlie's death. It is mentioned how many times Kelso fell off and what could have happened to him. Kelso responds by saying that they think they're invincible but they really can get hurt. Kelso then falls off the water tower yet again and remarks off-screen "Screw that, I'm invincible."
269* On ''Series/{{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth: Day Four'', a bridge is dropped on Ianto Jones. He and Jack enact the plan of marching into the alien's base, demanding it surrenders with no bargaining tool, then shooting at the bullet-proof glass. The alien then releases a toxic gas that kills everyone in the building (Jack comes back to life in the aftermath).
270* ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'': In 2011, Creator/CharlieSheen was fired from the show following disputes with its staff and an ensuing public meltdown. His character of Charlie Harper was supposedly killed by his girlfriend Rose pushing him into an oncoming train in Paris after she had caught him showering with another woman. In the GrandFinale, we learn that [[spoiler:Charlie had actually cheated on Rose during their honeymoon, and was being held captive in a "dungeon pit" at Rose's house back in the U.S. for four years. When he finally returns home, the InUniverse Chuck Lorre [[GainaxEnding has a piano dropped on him]]]].
271* ''Series/TwoPintsOfLagerAndAPacketOfCrisps'':
272** Jonny is killed off-screen by being eaten by a shark in Hawaii, after trying to jump it (in an entire episode that parodies the concept of "{{jumping the shark}}"). This was due to Ralf Little wanting to leave the show to concentrate on his movie career.
273** A similar stunt was pulled in an earlier season when Flo is killed off-screen when she gets hit by a truck. Again, this was due to Beverley Callard having to leave the show to return to her role in ''Series/CoronationStreet''.
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276[[folder:V]]
277* ''Valerie Harper'' lost her self-titled sitcom when she asked for a salary increase after the first season. The producers responded by firing her, having her Valerie Hogan character die in a car crash, and then having her sitcom family mourn off-screen before Aunt Sandy Duncan took over the motherly duties under the new title ''Valerie's Family'' (eventually renamed ''Series/TheHoganFamily''). Three episodes into the new season, all signs of Valerie Hogan literally went up in flames as the Hogan house caught on fire. Harper would later get a [[TakeThat sizable settlement]] from Lorimar and the producers for their handling of the situation.
278* ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'': Poor Pearl. She was such a cool character it's a shame she died by opening her front door and having a stake shot into her chest by smarmy John Gilbert.
279** And then they do the same to her daughter Anna just two episodes later: A likable teen vampire who just seemed to want to live a normal life, a failed attempt at a BigDamnHeroes sees her [[VanHelsingHateCrime get dragged off to be left paralysed in a burning building]], after which John Gilbert stakes her (and ''only'' her) while she's pleading with him not to, just so she can't get rescued with Damon.
280* ''{{Series/Vikings}}'': [[spoiler: King [=Æthelwulf=]]] suffers a fatal anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting.
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284* ''Series/WakingTheDead'' had to write out DS Mel Silver, arguably the show's EnsembleDarkHorse... and they chose to kill her off in the stupidest way possible, murdered on a whim not by [[BigBad anyone important]] but by a ''{{Mook|s}}'' [[MinionWithAnFInEvil with an F in Evil]]. Who promptly committed suicide. (Just to add insult to injury, the ManipulativeBastard who set the whole thing up apparently [[KarmaHoudini escapes justice]] at the end.)
285* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'':
286** [[spoiler:Dale]] is given a rather unceremonious exit after the actor requested to leave.
287** [[spoiler: T-Dog]], who was a somewhat important character right from the beginning, is bitten by a random walker due to circumstances caused by a character with no other plot significance. His death is almost completely ignored since a more important character dies in the same episode.
288** [[spoiler: Oscar]] dies an even more anticlimactic death. Just a few episodes after the group accepts him, he gets shot dead by one of the Governor's mooks, apparently just to give the incident a body count including a named character.
289** [[spoiler:Axel]] is KilledMidSentence during the Governor's first attack on the prison, again seemingly just to add a MauveShirt to the episode's body count without sacrificing any main characters just yet.
290** [[spoiler: Beth]]'s death was very sudden and random at the midway point of Season 5.
291** [[spoiler:Tyreese]] dies midway through Season 5 after becoming momentarily distracted and being bitten, while [[spoiler:Noah]] goes out late in Season 5 when another character panics and essentially throws him to the zombie hoard to save himself. While both deaths were given some meaningful context, they were both the result of the actors requesting to be written out so that they could move on to other projects, and so received some criticism for being fairly abrupt and less satisfying than character deaths that were planned in advance.
292** [[spoiler:Beta]]. Compared to the nigh-unstoppable killing machine from episodes such as "Chokepoint" and "Stalker", he is rather suddenly and unceremoniously taken out by Daryl in "A Certain Doom". Justified in three ways: one, he was so hell-bent on killing Negan that he let his guard down and gave Daryl the opportunity to sneak up on him; two, he was such a formidable opponent that getting the drop on him likely would have been the only way to kill him (something Daryl probably took to heart after his last, more direct, fight with [[spoiler:Beta]]); and three, they were in the middle of the horde and an all-out brawl probably wouldn't have been possible without the interference of the walkers, thus warranting a quick demise.
293* ''Series/TheWire'' does this intentionally with the death of Omar, who spends the whole show defying the odds by robbing drug dealers and even goes to war with a drug kingpin, surviving multiple shootouts and assassination attempts. In the final season, he's shot from behind while buying cigarettes by a random kid who recognized him.
294* ''Series/TheWitcher2019'' Considering how determined Geralt is to kill [[spoiler:Rience]], one would expect an epic showdown between the two. Instead, the latter gets his fingers chopped off, [[GameBreakingInjury stripping him of his fiery powers]] before the former [[spoiler:shows up out of nowhere and beheads him.]]
295%% * ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'': This is ''Disney'' so you can bet they were not actually going to kill someone off (even a vampire) so instead they settled for sending the growing in popularity Juliet to ''hell''.
296%% ** The problem is ''they have''. ''On screen''. Granted, it's not graphic but people don't usually come back from being frozen and shattered.
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299[[folder:X]]
300* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'':
301** When Xena, prophesied to spell the end of the Greek gods' reign, gains the power to kill gods, a group of them led by Athena attacks, and the whole group (except Athena herself, given a decent battle), some of whom were recurring allies or villains throughout ''years'' of the show as well as its parent series ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys,'' gets taken out more casually and anticlimactically than any ''Franchise/StarTrek'' {{Redshirt}}, one after another after another.
302** There's the episode "Endgame," which killed off the (much beloved) Amazon regent Ephiny two minutes into the opening teaser. Still, at least Ephiny died on screen; the following season Amarice, who had been Xena and Gabrielle's companion for a good run of episodes earlier that season, was unceremoniously killed offscreen during the teaser for the episode "Lifeblood" (by then the actress, Jennifer Sky, was starring in ''Series/Cleopatra2525'', but Amarice's character arc ended with her being happily left with a tribe of Amazons, so mentioning her again [[BusCrash just to say she was dead]] seemed, well, kind of mean and pointless).
303* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
304** In a show notorious for killing off characters, all three Lone Gunmen (Byers, Langley, and Frohike) made it all the way from the first year of the show until four episodes from the last, when they were killed off trying to stop the spread of a deadly contagion. The failure of the ''[[Series/TheLoneGunmen Lone Gunmen]]'' SpinOff series perhaps motivated the writers to kill off the characters for good, but the fact that they were Mulder's closest allies throughout the whole show makes this one a bit mean-spirited. (Of course, the episode was called "[[JumpingTheShark Jump The Shark]]"...)
305** Agent Pendrell of seasons 3 and 4 was killed off in a particularly undramatic fashion and jarring (if you liked the character). Drunk (out of character), carrying over beers for Scully to celebrate her birthday a night late, he gets shot from behind about one minute after he appears in the episode.
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308* ''Series/{{Yellowjackets}}'': After a whole season hinting that something nefarious happened to result in team captain Jackie's death, the [[Recap/YellowjacketsS1E10SicTransitGloriaMundi Season 1 finale]] reveals that she just froze to death after being kicked out of the cabin, and Shauna's guilt is because she was the one to tell Jackie to get out after Jackie confronted her for having sex with Jackie's boyfriend and lying about it.
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