This is when a season ends with a {{cliffhanger}} that could have killed any number of the cast.

Useful because executives can then [[ExecutiveMeddling negotiate contracts]] with the cliffhanger in mind; i.e., "Take a pay cut or we will kill you off".

Compare BolivianArmyEnding (for the end of an entire work), UncertainDoom (which occurs in the middle of a work or installment), and OurHeroIsDead. If characters are revealed to have escaped from the fatal event after being shown or suggested to have been caught right in the middle of it (i.e. A bomb demolishing a building before anyone could get out), that's a CliffhangerCopout.

EndingTrope, so beware '''Unmarked Spoilers'''.

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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'': The first season ends with two characters in a tense showdown and two gunshots, but doesn't show us who gets shot. And there's a massive battle to end all battles going on elsewhere. We only find out what happens in the next season, and even then, only halfway through the second season premiere.
* ''Manga/{{X1999}}'''s last chapter before it went into a hiatus is Kamui, lying on the ground while Fuuma holds the sword above his head with the intent to stab him and asks him what is his true wish.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2''. Woody learns that there was once a TV show starring his character. After one of the episodes ended with a cliffhanger: right in the middle of a jump across a canyon, the show was cancelled abruptly, leaving the story unfinished.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse''
** ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' ends with [[spoiler: half of all life in the universe apparently being disintegrated, including half of the MCU's protagonists. How this is resolved is left to [[Film/AvengersEndgame the sequel.]]]]
* ''Film/FastX'' ends with [[spoiler: most of the team possibly killed while Dom and Brian Jr. are trapped at the base of a dam that is about to explode]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has several. As the story is told from the POV of several characters, even one book can have multiple Bolivian Army Cliffhangers. From previous experience, these characters tend to survive.
** ''A Clash of Kings'': Davos (suffers a shipwreck).
** ''A Feast for Crows'': Arya (becomes blind) and Brienne (gets hanged).
** ''A Dance with Dragons'': Jaime (meets Brienne, who probably wants to kill him), Daenerys (meets a Dothraki army) and especially Jon (stabbed).
*** Daenerys' example is notable becaus it's effectively a Bolivian Army Cliffhanger for ''both'' sides. Dany has a ferocious, NighInvulnerable fire-breathing dragon on her side, after all.
* ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'' ends with the four main characters off their horses and surrounded by Humperdinck's army, resolved in the unfinished sequel.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In the Season 5 finale of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', Oliver is lured onto a boat driven by Adrian Chase, who has Oliver's son hostage, off the coast of Lian Yu. After Oliver is able to take his son back, it is revealed that the island, containing most of Oliver's allies, is rigged with explosives which will all detonate if Chase's heartbeat stops. Knowing Oliver won't kill him, he shoots himself, setting off all the explosives while leaving it unclear which members of Team Arrow survived.
* ''Series/{{Skins}}'' Series 1 ends with Tony being hit by a bus then the entire cast(including Tony) bursts into singing Cat Stevens' Wild World. Series 4 even went further than that and ended with Cook desperately rushing at the John Foster to avenge Freddie's death.
* ''Series/RobinHood'' Series 3 ends with Nottingham Castle being blown up and Gisbourne, Isabella and Sheriff Vaisey are all apparently dead too. (It's somewhat invalid considering the show was cancelled).
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'':
** [[Recap/CSINYS05E25 Season 5 ends]] with a machine gun opening fire on the entire regular cast, who were gathered in a bar to remember a colleague who'd been killed. The next season reveals that Danny has lost the use of his legs and the shooters attacked the bar at random.
** [[Recap/CSINYS06E23 Season 6 ends]] with Danny at the mercy of a SerialKiller (who had just hours before experienced a DisneyVillainDeath and [[NeverFoundTheBody they hadn't found the body yet]]) who's holding his daughter hostage. The screen goes black, then there's a gunshot. Fired by Lindsay, as revealed at the beginning of the new season.
* The season 1 finale of ''Series/NewAmsterdam2018'' ended with a massive car accident between two ambulances that left the fates of Georgia, Bloom, and Sharpe unknown. It was revealed in the season 2 opening episode that Sharpe and Bloom survived the accident while Georgia did not.
* Season 5 of ''Series/Dynasty1981'' ended with a terrorist attack on a wedding (long story) and everyone apparently dead. The first episode of the Season 6 was one of the highest rated episodes in that show's history. The resolution was that a couple of secondary characters introduced only in Season 5 got killed.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' season 5 ends with a hydrogen bomb potentially detonating in proximity to at least eight of the main characters. Of course, they have a ''better'' chance of surviving if it detonates than the alternative. Really.
* Season 9 of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' ends with a car bomb going off right outside NCIS headquarters with everyone except Vance, Ducky, and Palmer inside. Gibbs, [=McGee=], and Abby are all near windows when the blast hits, and Tony and Ziva are trapped in an elevator. Then the scene cuts to Ducky walking along a beach when he gets a call telling him about the bombing, and his instructions to the medical staff are cut short when he collapses from a heart attack. Apart from [=McGee=] getting hit with some glass, none of the main cast is hurt, and both he and Ducky recover.
* ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' has a mid-season story arc in which three characters are shot. All three ultimately survive--but at the beginning of the next season, two of those same three have been reassigned, as if the shooting was originally meant as a season-ending cliffhanger but was rearranged at the 11th hour.
* The third season of ''Series/{{Angel}}'' ended with Angel being buried in a coffin at the bottom of the ocean. While he's already undead so he couldn't technically die, the whole situation was supposed to be a FateWorseThanDeath where [[AndIMustScream he's trapped forever]].
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'':
** [[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E13Blake The final episode]] ended with all the heroes (and we mean ALL the heroes, even ones that had been PutOnABus in previous seasons) in assorted, apparently inescapable imminent death situations. The intention was that anyone who wanted in on the next season would be revealed to have survived, but at that point the show got cancelled, turning the cliffhanger into a BolivianArmyEnding.
** [[Recap/BlakesSevenS2E13StarOne The second season]] ended with the crew launching a seemingly suicidal DelayingAction against an alien fleet. Two characters were written out: Blake and Jenna. The former returned for the next two finales, dying in the last episode. The latter was killed off-screen.
* In the ''Series/ArmyWives'' Season 1 final episode, the title characters were inside a bar when a man walked in and detonated a bomb he had strapped to him.
* Just about every season ending from the later years of ''Series/{{ER}}''. Early seasons usually ended with some sense of closure (e.g. Carter's graduation). But then: Season 8 has four of the regulars locked inside during an apparent breakout of smallpox; 9 leaves Luka's fate unknown; 10 has the shootout while Chen and Pratt are in the car with Elgin; 12 has another shooting, this time inside the hospital; 13 has the stampede and 14 the explosion.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' Season 1 ends with a Wraith invasion fleet on the verge of overrunning Atlantis, Sheppard taking a puddlejumper to attempt a suicide attack with a nuclear warhead against one of the Hive Ships, Ford thrown overboard by a grenade blast, Colonel Everett fed on by a Wraith, and Dr. Weir activating the city's SelfDestructMechanism.
%% * ''Series/StargateUniverse'' Also season 1 ending.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds Part 1" ended this way, with the Enterprise's WaveMotionGun aimed at Picard and the Borg cube that assimilated him, with Riker giving the order to open fire. This coincided nicely with rumours that Patrick Stewart might be quitting, making for a very tense summer.
* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' had a season end with two characters captured by Magog, the android impaled, the captain and first officer knocked out, and the ship having taken a miniature black hole through it. Season 4's finale was even nastier, leaving everyone but Dylan dead or about to die. (They didn't.)
* The ending of ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' season 3 could have killed off Prue and Piper, and actually was used to kill off Prue.
* The finale for Season 1 of ''Series/Jericho2006'' ended with a cut to black as a firefight began involving most of the major characters. This may have contributed to the uproar in response to the cancellation of the series at the end of season 1, as many of the devoted fans did not know the fate of their favorite characters.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'':
** The series does this in its third season finale, showing several identical black [=SUVs=], each a destination for a pair of major characters. The episode ends with one of the [=SUVs=], not specifically identified, exploding. Season 4's opener, however, reveals that the only casualty was the single minor character among the possible victims. Although the producers at least tried to keep the mystery alive by doing nothing to debunk (and possibly even starting) rumours that Shemar Moore or Paget Brewster was leaving the show.
** The ending of Season Four, has Hotch at gunpoint from the Boston Reaper (George Foyet). Foyet says "You should have made a deal" then a gunshot is heard and fades to black. At the start of Season Five, it is revealed the Reaper shoots past Hotch's head to intimidate or scare him. It doesn't work. Then they struggle and Hotch gets non-fatally stabbed multiple times by Foyet, who mirrors his own wounds he self-inflicted to draw attention away from himself in the original case.
** Season six also did in a less-fatal manner. Hotch's announcement that they would all given the opportunity to transfer to another division provided the writers with an easy way to right out any character they wanted. Probably a result of the statuses of three cast members as series regulars the following season still being up for grabs at the time the episode was written.
** The season twelve finale ends with semi-truck ramming into the BAU's [=SUVs=] with them in it, leaving their fates unknown. This was used as a way to kill off a main character and was part of a larger story arc.
* In ''Series/TheGuardian'''s second season cliffhanger, James is brutally shot by a client and left to die. The resolution is a nasty fakeout: Nick sees the client leave and realizes something's up, but he's too late to help James.
* ''Series/GreysAnatomy'':
** Season 5 ended with both Izzy and George flatlining. Izzy survived, George didn't.
** Season 8 ended with Meredith, Christina, Mark, Lexie, Arizona, Derek in a plane crash. Averted with Lexie, who died in that episode. In the next season, Mark was in a coma, and eventually died.
** In season 9, the end of the finale has Richard passed out in the dark.
* ''Series/MadeInCanada'' plays it straight at the end of season 2, and casually dumps the lame survival excuses at the beginning of the next season.
* The unresolved Season 2/series finale of ''Series/DarkAngel'', which may be considered an unintentional BolivianArmyEnding.
* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' has done this with the last three November sweeps. In 2007 a tornado hit the street and the episode ended with Lynette screaming narmily while the camer pulled back and showed a devastated street. In 2008 everyone just happened to be at the same bar when it burned down and in 2009 everyone just happened to be in the same yard when an airplane fell out of the sky. The show's executives always try to get some hype going by saying that, yes, for sure, someone you care about has died. And it always ends up being a minor charactor.
* ''Series/TheWestWing'' at the end of season 1, had gunfire opened on the regular cast and a crowd, with the last lines being "Who's been hit? Who's been hit?". Ironically, they ''did'' fire Mandy, but she was "put on a bus to Mandyville" with no further mention whatsoever, also known as ChuckCunninghamSyndrome, rather than using the shooting as an explanation.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
** Season three ends with Clark being up and away, his father in a coma, Lana off to Paris, Chloe apparently blown up, Lionel knifed and Lex poisoned.
** Actually, pretty much ''every'' season of Smallville has this: The first season ends with Clark and Lana sucked up into a tornado, Lex and Lionel in a collapsing building, Jonathan running out into a storm and Martha menaced by a floating spaceship. By the time of the fifth season cliffhanger (Clark trapped in the Phantom Zone, Lex possessed by Zod and making out with an oblivious Lana, Martha and Lois trapped on a crashing plane, and Chloe and Lionel being attacked by a mob ''that just springs up out of nowhere because there's been a power cut''), it was starting to get a bit silly.
* The season eight finale of ''Series/CSIMiami'' ended with many people in the lab and the entire main cast (minus Eric, Horatio, and Det. Tripp) collapsing to the floor, most likely from either a poison or a biochemical agent (implied by the episode to be bubonic plague, but the episode's depiction of it is ArtisticLicenseBiology). Before the screen went black, Eric ran up to Calleigh and begged her to breathe, implying that whatever knocked them out is quite likely fatal. According to Emily Procter herself in an interview in TV Guide, one of them is going to be dead by next season, but they won't know who until the season starts filming. The doomed member is SixthRanger Jesse due to a head injury and the "plague" turned out to be gas.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' once parodied this at the end of the 11th season. The whole cast save Creator/JonLovitz was trapped in a burning building to explain away any potential cast changes the next year.[[note]]In the event, the only cast members who stayed were Nora Dunn, the aforementioned Lovitz, Creator/DennisMiller, and writer/performer A. Whitney Brown.[[/note]]
* The finale to the first series of ''Series/{{Psychoville}}'' had the majority of the main cast gathered in an abandoned mental hospital by the villain, who too was there, and strapped with explosives. Cue massive explosion...which the viewers see occur from outside. We are left to theorize who, if anyone, survived.
* The first series of BBC's ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' ends with pointing a gun at a bomb, threatening to blow John Watson, and Moriarty and himself up.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' is fond of these for their season finales:
** Season 1: John and the boys have just been in a nasty car accident. We see them in the destroyed car, but don't know if they are alive or dead until the season 2 premiere.
** Season 3: Dean is killed by hellhounds, and his soul is sent to Hell, leaving his future uncertain. Overlaps with DownerEnding.
** Season 4: Castiel is facing off an archangel, said to be one of the most powerful entities in existence, and Sam and Dean are faced with Lucifer rising from his cage.
** Season 6: Castiel gives the boys an ultimatum: bow down and swear their love to him, their new Lord God, or be destroyed.
** Season 7: Castiel and Dean just killed Dick Roman, but are dragged along with his soul into the dimensional realm of Purgatory, where the soul of every monster that ever lived hunt for all eternity. Sam is left completely alone back on Earth, which is now a battleground for the remaining Leviathans and Crowley's demon army.
** Season 8: Sam collapses in agony, apparently dying, as a result of trying and failing to close the Gates of Hell. Meanwhile, Castiel is stripped of his Grace and dumped somewhere in the wild as Metatron casts ''every angel'' out of Heaven.
** Season 9: Dean dies, with the last scene showing coming back as a demon.
** Season 10: Dean is cured of the Mark of Cain but this winds up freeing [[EldritchAbomination the Darkness]], and he and Sam take cover in the Impala while it spreads over the entire area. Meanwhile Castiel ends up BrainwashedAndCrazy by Rowena and ends up trying to kill Crowley.
* ''Series/{{Neighbours}}'' has been doing this consistently since the 90s (note that other years feature lives endangered, just not more than one):
** Beth and Hannah trapped in a burning cottage, while Cameron, for unrelated reasons, was being held over an open elevator shaft (1992);
** Gaby and Annalise in a plane crash (1993);
** Karl and Joel in a flood, with Joel's leg trapped under a car (1998);
** Drew and Lolly being pulled out of a burning house, both injured (1999);
** Joe trapped in his taxi during a bushfire with a passenger about to go into labour (2000);
** the Lassiters complex is set on fire with Stu and Sindi trapped in the pub, while Max is knocked out by an explosion. (2004)
** Libby, Zeke and Bridget missing during a rafting trip, when their raft is capsized by a prank. (2008)
** Summer and Andrew trapped in a fire, as Natasha and Michael s attempt to rescue them. (same house as 1999!) (2010).
** One season ended with the roof collapsing on an illegal dance party at which many of the characters were present. (2007)
* ''Series/HomeAndAway'' has pulled this a few times as well:
** Rhys, Kirsty, Jade and Max are trapped down a mine shaft which then caves in on them. (2003)
** A car containing Kane, Annie and Jai crashes into a hall where several other characters are attending the school formal, while at the same time Jack gets accidentally shot. (2008)
** A bomb planted in Bianca's bag goes off at the hospital with several people in the blast area, while Kyle, Evie and Oscar have been left locked in a shipping crate. (2013)
** A bus containing several of the Summer Bay residents crashes after a near collision with a car containing Nate and his wife Sophie. (2014)
** A bushfire started by John (who turns out to have a brain tumour causing blackouts) threatens an open-air concert several of the characters are attending, while at the same time Justin gets stabbed by his parents' killer. (2016)
** A number of the residents are held hostage by gunmen at the hospital, stopping Bella getting help after an overdose, Mason gets shot, and Colby and Dean sneak in to try and help them. (2019)
** Felicity and Eden drive off in a vehicle whose breaks have been sabotaged (2022)
** Remi is knocked off his bike and, when Eden stumbles across the scene, the driver responsible takes them both prisoner intending to dispose of them (2023)
* ''Series/OutrageousFortune'' (New Zealand drama) had an uncharacteristic one at the very end of Season 5. Zane Gerard fired gunshots at either Cheryl or Pascalle, himself having just been fatally stabbed with a broken bottle and we had to wait till next season to see who, if anyone survived. This was because the lead actors were engaged in aggressive negotiations with the production and it was not clear which of them would be returning.
* Happened quite often in ''Series/BabylonFive'', often as part of JMS's preplanned "hooks" to remove a character from the plot if the actor decided to quit. Perhaps the most impressive was Captain Sheridan, who ended the third season finale at ground zero of two 500-megaton nuclear explosions. He came back (eventually), as did Garibaldi (variously shot, missing, disgraced). In non-finale examples a number of characters including Talia Winters (season two episode 19) and Marcus Cole (season four episode 20) stayed gone.
** Seemed to be Michael Garibaldi's main thing.
* ''Series/Reno911'' did this twice. The first season ending with a shootout that leaves everybody apparently dead (it was AllJustADream the next season). Season 5 ends with the deputies' parade float careening into a building that then [[MadeOfExplodium explodes]], this time three of them [[DroppedABridgeOnHim didn't come back]].
* The season 3 ending of ''Series/{{JAG}}''.
* ''Series/{{Oz}}'' did this twice. The first season ends with National Guard troops forcing their way into the cell block to end the riot, firing live ammunition at random. The fourth season ends with an accidental gas explosion in the kitchens.
* The end of Series 1 of [[Series/JeopardyCBBC Jeopardy]], which has the group being abducted by aliens as they wait on the ridge to be rescued by helicopter.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Season 1 ends with an anomaly created due to the time paradox of Eddie's HeroicSuicide which keeps Eobard Thawne from being born and Barry rushes to try and stop it before the thing destroys all of Central City.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' indeed took a leaf out from the source materials in using this trope for the season finales:
** Season 2: Samwell Tarly comes face-to-face with a White Walker and the army of Wights. The next season reveals that he narrowly escaped from them and fortunately met his Night's Watch brothers.
** Season 5: Daenarys, surrounded by a Dothraki horde without Drogon; Jaime, holding the dying Myrcella in his arms after being poisoned by Ellaria Sand while en route to King's Landing; Theon and Sansa, fleeing from Ramsey Bolton by jumping off the castle walls of Winterfell; Brienne, killing Stannis after his defeat from the Boltons and Jon Snow, lying on the snow and dying after his Night's Watch brothers betrayed him.
** Season 7: Tormund and Beric try to run away as the undead Viserion destroys the entire Eastwatch outpost, which gives way for the White Walkers to breach the way and march into the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
* ''Series/WorldOnFire'': The first series ends with Harry and Kasia's attempt to escape Poland with the [[LaResistance Polish Resistance]] rumbled. The resistance cell are massacred, and Harry and Kasia are fleeing up a hill surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered.
* One series of ''Series/WaterlooRoad'' ended with a bus crashing into all the cast heading up to Scotland. Who lives and dies isn't revealed until the next series.
* ''Series/WarriorNun'': The first season ends with the nuns confronting a huge crowd of people controlled by [[EvilAllAlong Adriel's]] wraith demons in the Vatican, with the last shots being of Mary getting overwhelmed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Manhwa]]
* ''Manhwa/{{Veritas}}'', scheduled to have a second part to the story, ends with the lead ''starting'' a fight with Vera, the closest thing the series has to a BigBad, having just awoken Yuri, the closest thing the series has to a SealedEvilInACan in order to get the EleventhHourSuperpower he needs to fight the first one. The last time he fought anyone he was not yet ready to fight Vera.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Driv3r}}'' ends with Tanner flatlining after being shot by the BigBad's LastBreathBullet. A doctor seems to be getting a defibrillator ready, but the whole thing wasn't resolved until years later in Driver: San Francisco.
* The mission "Of Their Own Accord" in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare2'' ends with the US Army Rangers boarding a Blackhawk to cover the evacuation of civilians from a warzone. After gunning down multiple Russian gunners, the helicopter is shot down, and your character, Pvt. Ramirez, wakes up inside the wreckage as Russian troops are closing in, you run out of ammo, and Cpl. Dunn gets shot. The next few mission takes place on the other side of the world, with an entirely different protagonist. Then we are sent back to Ramirez, Foley, and Dunn, who thanks to the timely actions of the other protagonist and his squad, survives.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' ends with the protagonist being forced to flee from a losing battle while the rest of his comrades stay to give him the time to run. The sequel reveals that they're all saved after the protagonist leaves, and they end up scattered across the country after their own escape.
* Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead Season Two'' ends with the survivors in a MexicanStandoff between another Russian group. Rebecca starts to turn, causing either Clementine or Kenny to shoot her, then the Russian group opens fire. SmashToBlack. No one in Clem's group dies in the ensuing battle, but Luke gets grazed in the leg, which proves to be his doom later on.
* At the end of ''VideoGame/{{XIII}}'', the conspirator's identity is revealed and the hero is left in a potentially deadly situation. It was never resolved in game form because the developers wanted that to happen; in the original comic book, the Mongoose is still alive and Walter Sheridan lets XIII live to avoid another conspiracy and since XIII has no evidence against Sheridan anyways. There also wasn't much more to do in terms of gameplay, nor satisfying plot, so the game was purposely ended there.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' sorta pulls this off. After the [[NastyParty Battle of Belhalla]] it is given that with a few exceptions in which characters are indisputably dead, the fates of the rest of the playable cast are unknown to varying degrees. Supplementary material only give so much information, and most of these characters are still unaccounted for. Of course, this isn't the end of the game, as the entire playable cast thus far was just a decoy...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/GuildedAge'': End of Chapter 8. Which was also the end of act one. Turns out they ''are'' killed, but a couple chapters later they come back.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': The last scene in Grenzlan in Book I shows Lemuel injured and surrounded by quickly approaching foes with his allies all dead. Ashley confirmed that the battle would not be visited again, and that readers would have to imagine what happened next, though Lemuel's fate will likely be revealed in Book II given its setting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Both the Season 1 and Season 2 finales of ''AudioPlay/WereAlive''. "The War" ended with the Tower besieged by the Mallers and Zombies. "The Harder They Fall" ended with the Tower crew fleeing the wreckage of the Tower on a helicopter headed for the unknown and leaving behind several of their comrade who they believed to be dead.
* Season 13 of ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' ends with the Red and Blues aboard the Staff Of Charon, barricaded in the trophy room and ready to fight the Space Pirates that are cutting through the door. Epsilon takes advantage of his faster perception of time to [[DeadManWriting record a message for them]], explaining that he needs to deconstruct himself in order to give them the power they need to win (effectively killing himself). Just as the action is about to start up, Epsilon fragments and the episode ends.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': Season 6 ends on a shot of Rob falling into the void with the rest of the cast's fates being unknown.
* ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'':
** Season One ends with the alien Vok about to scorch the entire planet. The last shot of the episode is Optimus exploding in space while Megatron rallies his troops for a final assault against the Maximals.
** In one of the more completely awesome moments of the series, the second season ended up with Megatron messing up the whole of reality ''by shooting '''[[Franchise/TransformersGeneration1 THE]]''' Optimus Prime in the head!!''
** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' has one for the season 2 finale, while most of the Autobots are scattered to the winds, Optimus is caught in the destruction of their base, and the last we see of him is his arm sticking out of the wreckage.
* ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': At the end of season one, KVN is killed, while Gary, Quinn, Little Cato, Tribore and Shannon have uncertain fates that certainly do not look like they have good odds of a positive outcome.
* The first season of ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2002'' reboot ends with all the heroic Masters captured and imprisoned, leaving only Prince Adam (without his Sword of Power) to defend Castle Grayskull against Skeletor, all his henchmen, and nearly every single villain from the entire season.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': Season 2 ends with a propane explosion that causes Mega Lo Mart to catch fire while Hank, Luanne and Buckley still inside.
** The beginning of season 3 reveals that only Buckley died.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'' Season 2 ends with Charles Offdensen brutalized by the Metal Masked Assassin albeit Dethklok prevents him from finishing him off, leaving it uncertain if he is dead or not. Most of the Season 3 premiere plays it off as him actually dying at first (complete with a ReallyDeadMontage) ,but it's revealed at the end that he did survive the encounter...sort of, [[BackFromTheDead it's complicated]].
* ''WesternAnimation/SkullIsland2023'': The first season ends with Annie back in [[spoiler:her long-lost mother]] Irene's custody and at a hospital after having been in a two-week coma. Meanwhile, the last we saw of fellow human leads Charlie and Mike back on the titular IsleOfGiantHorrors was the former being attacked by an angry native, and the latter being poisoned.
* The first season of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'' ends with a handful of Jedi holding out against an army of Battle Droids and the newly introduced General Grievous. The second season actually picks up a couple minutes later. Four Jedi survived the initial ambush, and holed up where the Droid army couldn't touch them. General Grievous killed one more Jedi before Ki-Adi-Mundi single-handedly stalled long enough for reinforcements to arrive and save his surviving friends.
* A particularly frustrating example in the finale of ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama World Tour'': After Chris' final challenge results in the volcano erupting, the contestants are seen swimming away from Hawaii as giant flaming boulders rain down upon them, Alejandro is seen alive in TheStinger, but it is left unknown whether or not the other twenty-four contestants managed to survive.
** They all survived, even Ezekiel.
* The seventh and final episode of ''Free for All'' ended with a crazed gunman firing wildly at the main cast, who are offscreen, with no indication of which of them survived.
[[/folder]]
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