- In Altered Carbon, people's consciousness is stored in a small device (a "stack") at the base of the skull, so even if the body (a.k.a. "sleeve") dies, the stack can be implanted in a new one or spun up in a virtual environment. Thus destroying a stack is "real death", while killing a sleeve is merely "organic damage". Given the violence of the show, a great many people are RD'd. Then there are the meths, people wealthy enough to have clones and off-site backups for their stacks, making them effectively immortal. One meth is killed at the end of the first season after destroying the backup; the second season introduces a "meth-killer" who can do so with merely a touch. Kovacs himself pulls a Heroic Sacrifice at the end, getting vaporized by a Kill Sat though the final scene hints that his AI buddy managed to grab a last-minute backup in his own memory.
- In American Horror Story: Coven, where several characters (most notably Misty Day) have resurrection powers, it's established that the only way to ensure that someone won't be brought back is to obliterate the body, such as cremation, acid, or digestion.
Misty: Even I can't bring back gator shit.
- Doyle, Wesley, and Cordelia on Angel. The personality of Fred was also permanently destroyed by an elder god taking over her body, in spite of the entire cast utilizing the resources of an interdimensional law firm to bring her back. Had the show been renewed, however, Fred and said elder god would have somehow been split apart.
- Arrowverse:
- The franchise generally follows Superhero Movie Villains Die, unless the villains are popular among the fanbase. Eobard Thawne from The Flash is the one villain who refuses to stay dead despite having been rendered Deader than Dead (more than once). Malcolm Merlyn from Arrow was once thought of the same way as well, until he finally dies for real in the Season 5 finale.
- Arrow has killed off many heroes and their allies throughout the series, but the most notable one that sticks is Laurel Lance, who dies in the 18th episode of Season 4. Her death is stated by the creators themselves to be a permanent one and they have thrown a myriad of excuses to make extra sure that she will never come back (e.g. the Lazarus Pit being destroyed several episodes before she dies, various characters taking up her mantle as the Black Canary, and most prominently, her Earth-2 Evil Doppelgänger, Black Siren, crossing over from The Flash to become a main cast member and eventually making a Heel–Face Turn, joining Team Arrow in Season 7). Even the Grand Finale, which resurrects many of Oliver's dead loved ones, including Tommy, Moira, and Quentin, still manages to avoid bringing her back by stating that it would have prevented Earth-2 Laurel from continuing to exist, after the destruction of her universe, essentially lumping her with Robert Queen whose death is immutable because it happened in the backstory.
- The death of Eddie Thawne from The Flash has never been reverted. Until Tommy Merlyn is brought back in the Grand Finale of Arrow, Eddie basically serves as his counterpart in The Flash: the Nice Guy friend of the protagonist who gets in the way between his relationship with the female lead, therefore creating the perfect combination of Death by Newbery Medal and Death of the Hypotenuse, so he probably never has a shot at resurrection.
- While Death Is Cheap in Legends of Tomorrow, there are two notable Legends who experience permanent death. The first is Leonard Snart, who bites the dust at the end of Season 1 and stays that way, although versions of him still recur in the following two seasons. The second is Martin Stein, who dies in the Crisis on Earth-X crossover. Unlike Snart, Stein never returns in any way, because his actor wanted to focus on theater after departing the show.
- Babylon 5 had a particularly daring example: At the end of the fourth season, the ranger Marcus Cole gave his life to save his (unrequited) love, Commander Susan Ivanova, from certain death. J. Michael Straczynski, the writer, has commented that he would have resolved that differently, had he known he was going to get a fifth season after all, and that Claudia Christian (Ivanova's actor) was going to refuse to come back for another year.
- During the first season, people would ask JMS a lot if a one-off character was really dead (since recurring villains are so popular in Sci-Fi shows, and usually Death Is Cheap). The answer was always yes (usually phrased colloquially like "dead as a doornail" or "He blowed up real good."). After a while, people stopped asking.
- The new Battlestar Galactica has the resurrection-capable Cylons finally start Dying Off For Real towards the end of the series after their resurrection equipment gets Blown Up For Real. It wasn't afraid to kill off characters from the very beginning, either. Fortunately, it had a large cast, so the deaths of Socinus, Crashdown, Elosha, Cain, Fisk, Gina, Billy, Maya, Kat, Cally, D'Anna, Dualla, Laird, Zarek, Gaeta, Natalie, and in the finale, all the Fours, all the Fives, Racetrack, Skulls, Roslin, Cavil, Boomer, Tory and Anders still left enough cast members to put on a show. Technically speaking, EVERYONE dies seeing as how the last scene takes place 150,000 years in the future.
- In Being Human, not only does Mitchell get staked at the end of series 3, but by the opening of the fourth series Nina is pronounced dead off-screen after being killed by vampires and George later dies from kidney and heart failure from forcing himself to transform and is seen going through the door to the other side to be reunited with Nina, but not before naming his newborn daughter "Eve."
- The Bold and the Beautiful: This has happened quite surprisingly common for a Soap Opera and in spite of several characters dying and reviving:
- Possibly the most well-known example is Caroline Spencer Forrester, Ridge's first wife and love (in-series). Although their romance went through many ups and downs in the three years she was on the series, she and Ridge were eventually able to happily marry until her death from cancer in 1990.
- Macy Alexander, the oldest child of Stephanie's professional and personal rival Sally Spectra, was initially killed off via a fiery car crash while trying to stop Thorne from signing their divorce papers, but was actually saved by her father Adam at the last moment and he took her to Italy to recover. She came back three years later to her grieving mother's shock and she was getting her life back together by getting sober, falling for and marrying Deacon and having a rising career as a singer. Sadly, rivals of her husband rigged for a chandelier to fall on her, critically injuring her and ultimately being removed from life-support.
- Forrester family matriarch and one of the longest-running original cast members Stephanie Forrester herself died after a two-year battle with lung cancer in 2012. This was actually at her actress, Susan Flannery's, request, who was retiring from acting citing her advancing age.
- Bones: There were many, many times where various characters in the show were shot or otherwise seriously/critically injured in some way, but ultimately pulled through where in real life they probably would have died. Still, that didn't stop the show from claiming a few victims anyway:
- Vincent Nigel-Murray, one of Brennan's rotating interns, was shot by a sniper who was trying to target Booth, in the aptly-named Season 6 penultimate episode "The Hole in the Heart".
- Christopher Pelant, a serial killer who'd been terrorizing the team since Season 7 (and survived being shot in the face by Booth in Season 8) was finally killed off by Booth in Season 9's "The Sense in the Sacrifice." Characters and fans alike were not sad to see him go.
- Lance Sweets, a main character since mid-Season 3, was beaten, left for dead, and succumbed to his wounds with Booth and Brennan at his side in a completely unexpected, out-of-nowhere fashion in the Season 10 premiere, "The Conspiracy of the Corpse."
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- Jenny Calendar, Tara Maclay, Anya Jenkins, and to a lesser extent most of the Slayers in training, as well as Willow and Xander's friend Jesse.
- Joyce Summers, unlike most deaths on the show, it didn't involve supernatural activity or foul play in the least - she died of a brain tumor. This, of course, was important to the plot of the fifth season, and while many saw symbolism in it (like the physical manifestation of not being able to take care of Buffy, or a form of mortality that Buffy will not soon face) Joss Whedon claimed it was nothing more than a tumor, saying he had originally planned to kill off Joyce as early as the third season. In any event, she was mourned by nearly every regular on the show, even amoral characters like Spike and Anya.
- After Simone becomes a Slaypire, Buffy graphically stakes her with the Scythe. She will not be missed.
- Wishverse!Buffy was killed by the Master, leading to questions on a Wishverse!Kendra, or *shudder* Wishverse!Faith.
- In what became the final episode of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, Jennifer dies when the Power Base self-destructs. Even though there was a fairly blatant angle for her to come Back from the Dead (The very last thing we see of her is Blastarr aiming his digitizer — a device which can save humans to a disc for archival — at her), the Word of God is that not only did she die, but she already had massive internal injuries from the preceding scene that would have killed her even if she hadn't been blown up. Had the series been renewed, much of the following season would have dealt with Captain Power's failure to cope with her death.
- Prue Halliwell in Charmed. Although all of the sisters at one point have died and been brought back, Prue dies permanently at the end of season 3 and was never seen again. Her actress, Shannen Doherty, left the show and had a contract that prevents the creators from using her image. This was explained in-universe as "just meant to be" and seeing her prevents her sisters from moving on.
- Danger 5: Claire in the first episode of season 2, despite people being reincarnated as a Running Gag.
- Dear White People: Thane dies when attempting to "fly" out of a window while intoxicated near the end of Episode 3, Season 1.
- Desperate Housewives always threatens characters with death, only to miraculously save them: Susan is held hostage by Zach at the end of Season 1, Danielle is threatened by Matthew at the end of Season 2, Julie is strangled in Season 6 but survives (admittedly amnesiac), Orson is paralyzed in the plane crash in Season 6, Lynette has cancer, and Mike is hit by a car at the end of Season 3, but survives in a coma; Adam gets beaten nearly to death by Katherine's evil husband in Season 4, Orson's mother suffers a stroke but survives in a locked-in state. The people who die for real are Mary-Alice's Plot-Triggering Suicide, Martha Huber (a supporting character) gets strangled by Paul in Season 1, Rex in Season 1, George in Season 2, supporting character Nora in Season 3, Beth in Season 7, Mike and Mrs McCluskey in Season 8.
- Doctor Who frequently kills off the weekly one shots, with some episodes ending most dead, usually save for the Doctor (but not always) and his companion(s). However, the show also occasionally kills off a more long-standing character for real.
- This was originally intended for the Daleks even after their debut story. Per Terry Nation:
"In that first series I killed them off completely. Nobody has ever killed off their brainchild so thoroughly as I annihilated mine—with the possible exception of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle trying to rid himself of Sherlock Holmes."
When they proved
immensely popular, a rematch was certain. Nation realized his folly:
"Fortunately, though, the trusty TARDIS came to my rescue—I was able to bring the Daleks back in a time before the date they were exterminated!"
- In the classic show's history, only one ongoing companion has been taken from the Doctor by death: Adric.note Adric is not the first character identified as a "companion" to die, however, the characters of Katarina and Sara Kingdom, both of whom died in the same 1960s story, "The Daleks' Master Plan", had only been with the Doctor for a few episodes each. Adric, by comparison, was in his second season with the show. He was trapped on a freighter ship that crashed into prehistoric Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs... and himself.
- In "The Angels Take Manhattan", Amy and Rory have a variation — they live out their lives in the past, unable to return because of a fixed point in time. Notably, they're the first companions (one shots notwithstanding) to have something like this happen since Adric. They caused the mother of all paradoxes by jumping off the roof, causing the events of the episode not to have happened. Trying to make another paradox, even a small one, could rip a space/time hole in New York. Also, it's just the Doctor who can't go and see them, so they technically weren't separated by death. River can visit them any time she wants.
- This is Clara Oswald's fate in "Face the Raven". Where Amy and Rory die off-screen, Clara dies on-screen, screaming in pain, in a Senseless Sacrifice that sees her soul ripped from her body... It's as horrible to watch as it sounds, and the Doctor has no means of saving her. He has a severe Sanity Slippage (exacerbated by torture) and in "Hell Bent" two episodes later is an Anti-Villain who knowingly risks the universe by violating the fixed point of her death via pulling her out of time, leaving her living in the last second of her life. In the end, they realize he must return to his best self and they must part ways for good; however, having obtained a second TARDIS in the course of events, Clara is shown to be off having adventures in it at the end! Considering the timeline seems to be OK so far, it's implied she eventually goes back to Gallifrey and the moment of her death, though there's no telling how much time will have passed for her. In any case, her death is NOT actually reversed, and never can be; rather she's a case of Our Zombies Are Different!note The first episode of the spin-off series Class confirms that Clara is still officially dead.
- Earth: Final Conflict manages to kill off a good number of main and supporting characters over its 5 seasons. First of all, there's the Season 1 protagonist William Boone, disintegrated by Zo'or in the season finale. He is brought back for two episodes in Season 5... and is Killed Offscreen, whose death is briefly mentioned and forgotten in the Grand Finale. Boone's pilot and partner Lili Marquette gets Put on the Bus, only to come back for a two-parter and then leave again. In Season 5, it's implied that she's dead. Jonathan Doors, the leader of La Résistance, is killed by his son's crapshoot AI, only to come back as a digital consciousness that dooms the Taelon race before being deleted. The Season 4 finale gives us Liam Kincaid, the protagonist of seasons 2-4, although he inexplicably comes back in the Grand Finale and actually stays alive. Then we got Da'an, Zo'or, and Vorjak, plus the entire Taelon and Jaridian races. Zo'or is briefly brought back in Season 5 as an Atavus before being blown up. The Taelon race is "revived" as Ra'jel. Season 5 also gives us Juda, Howlyn's mate, whose death signifies that humans are no longer as palatable to the Atavus as before. Finally, the Grand Finale has Howlyn himself being challenged and killed by another Atavus warrior, and Ronald Sandoval, who has been in the show from the beginning, gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Renee.
- Den Watts was Killed Off for Real in EastEnders, but as proof of just how hard it is to kill a soap star, he was resurrected many years later with the Retcon that he was hiding in Spain. But after this miraculous recovery from the choir invisible, he was finally really, really killed, and just to hammer it home to future writers not to bring him back, there was a whole arc around the disposal, discovery and then burial of his body. So he can't be brought back this time... we hope.
- Parodied in the Doctor Who episode "Army of Ghosts"; when the Doctor is flipping through TV channels, he lands on EastEnders, where Den Watts' ghost appears in the Queen Vic. Peggy, exasperated, yells, "GET OUT OF ME PUB!" at him.
- ER
- Averted with Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), who was supposed to be killed off in the very first episode by suicide by overdosing but the producers and audience liked her so much that she is revealed to be alive in the following episode, and returns to her job in the episode after that. She went on to remain in the show for six whole seasons.
- Dennis Gant (Omar Epps) commits suicide by jumping in front of a train in Season 3.
- Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin) is stabbed in Season 6 by a schizophrenic patient suffering a psychotic break and despite the best efforts of the staff, she succumbs to her injuries. The same patient also attacked John Carter, leaving him with lifelong kidney problems.
- Carla Reese (Lisa Nicole Carson), the former girlfriend of Peter Benton and the mother of his adoptive son Reese, is killed in a car accident at the start of Season 8.
- Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) is diagnosed with a brain tumor in Season 7, but has surgery to remove it. However, it comes back more aggressively in Season 8, and he dies at the end of the season.
- Robert Romano (Paul McCrane) has his arm cut off by a helicopter's tail rotor in Season 9, gets it reattached but suffers complications so has to have it reamputated, and struggles with using a prosthetic. This destroys his career as a surgeon. To top it all off, he then gets crushed to death by a helicopter that crashes during high winds into the ambulance bay outside the ER in Season 10.
- Michael Gallant (Sharif Atkins) originally left the series in Season 10 when he is called back to serve in the army. He returns in recurring guest appearances in Seasons 11 and 12 during which he marries Neela Rasgotra (Parminder Nagra). Just after this, he returns to the army and is killed by a hidden explosive device in Season 12.
- Steve (Cole Hauser), a recurring character, the former partner of Sam Taggart (Linda Cardellini) and the father of their son Alex, kidnaps both her and their son at the end of Season 12. At the beginning of Season 13, Steve kills his two accomplices and then rapes Sam. While he is sleeping, Sam shoots Steve twice in the head as an act of self-defence.
- Greg Pratt (Mekhi Phifer) suffers serious injuries when an ambulance he was riding in is blown up at the end of Season 14. He succumbs to his injuries at the beginning of Season 15.
- And, of course, an uncountable number of patients, some of which we never even learn the names of.
- Farscape set up a brilliant loophole for themselves by having main character Crichton doubled. NOT cloned; the resulting two people were one person made two, with both having an equal claim to being the "real" Crichton. Thus, when one was killed off the writers were able to fully play off the emotions surrounding that death while still keeping the character around. And D'Argo is definitively Killed Off for Real in a You Shall Not Pass! Heroic Sacrifice in The Peacekeeper Wars.
- Friends: Joey angers the writers of the soap opera he is working on, and they kill off his character by throwing him down an elevator shaft. The gang is watching the show when Phoebe says "Well, maybe they can find a way to bring you back" only to be told by Joey "They said that when they found my body, my brain was so smashed in that the only doctor that could have saved me was me. Supposed to be some kind of irony or somethin'." He did eventually come back in the end, with a different — female — brain in his body. Though the female brain thing only lasted one episode and then Drake was actually back.
- On Fringe the second season opener killed off Charlie. Just to hammer the point home the thing that stole his face ends the episode by tossing the body into an incinerator. In the fourth season, A Day in the Limelight for the two Lincolns resulted in Alt-Lincoln's death. Finally, in the fifth season, Nina dies at the hands of the Observers, although the series finale reset probably makes her death void.
- Game of Thrones: Pyat Pree, the warlock of Qarth. He escaped death once before due to his duplication magic, but when Dany's dragons burn him alive he remains dead.
- A similar plot was used decades earlier by the British show Hancock's Half Hour. In an episode where the Hancock character is a BBC radio soap star (in a parody of The Archers), the other actors are so fed up with his erratic acting style that the producer finally decides to kill him off. Unfortunately, it turns out that the character was more popular than the producer thought and the BBC receives a barrage of hate mail. Eventually, Hancock agrees to come back as the original character's twin brother - but only if he is given full creative control, which he then uses to kill off the rest of the cast.
- An established rule of Harper's Island was that at least one character had to die every episode. Meaning that we start with a cast of 25 people (plus several minor ones) and are left with a measly 4 remaining by the end of the series.
- Heroes: Eden McCain, Simone Deveaux, Isaac Mendez, Daniel Linderman, D.L. Hawkins, Kaito Nakamura, Niki Sanders, Bob Bishop, Adam Monroe, Elle Bishop, Arthur Petrelli, Benjamin "Knox" Washington, Daphne Millbrook, Emile Danko, and Nathan Petrelli. All major or significant recurring characters, and all Killed Off for Real.
- When it was announced in the final season that one of the characters was going to die for real, nobody was surprised that it was Nathan- it was the fifth time he'd died in the series.
- Highlander had quite a few over the years: Tessa Noel, Hugh Fitzcairn, Richie Ryan, and in the first film, Ramirez, who recovered only to die off for real in the sequel. Connor MacCleod and Joe Dawson joined the list in later films, though the film where Joe died was later removed from canon due to being disliked by nearly everyone, including the producers.
- Most of the deaths in Lexx were tempered by having killed-off cast members either become another person entirely (Xev/Zev) or having their spirits transferred into other bodies during the Fire/Water arc of the third season and the Earth arc in season four (Gigarotta, Prince, Lyekka, Priest). That said, the Light Side universe was permanently destroyed (along with season two's Big Bad, Mantrid) at the end of the second season, and almost the entire population of the Milky Way galaxy, Kai and the Lexx itself (via old age) died by the end of the series finale.
- Kamen Rider generally goes with Anyone Can Die. One-shot and supporting characters die fairly frequently. The season's finale usually kills one (or more) main characters. They may come back if the setting of that particular story allows it, but if it doesn't then this trope is a sure thing.
- In Kamen Rider Ryuki, this is what happens to every single Kamen Rider in the series. Yes, that includes the main character. While they are all brought back to life via Reset Button, none of them remember the events of the series and thus are essentially different people from their counterparts in the original timeline.
- Most deaths on Lost are of this variety. The exceptions are Charlie's Disney Death and Shannon's All Just a Dream death in season 1, plus a few Not Quite Dead villains since, but all of these have later ended up Killed Off for Real. Due to flashbacks and apparitions, most characters have appeared at least once after their deaths, which gives the writers the luxury of writing "real" deaths but still using the characters and actors when they'd like to.
- Ethan Rom is notable for appearing in more episodes after his death than before it, thanks to flashbacks.
- Season 5 played heavily with this trope. Upon returning to the island, John Locke came back to life after being strangled to death by Ben. But in the season finale, it was revealed that Locke actually was dead- Jacob's unnamed nemesis had somehow taken on his appearance and used it to manipulate the Others.
- Mikhail Bakunin was a minor villain who had proven to be so death-resistant that, even after he died by intentionally detonating a grenade while holding it, some fans were sure that he'd come back. He didn't, although an alternate version of him appeared in the flash-sideways universe. That one was killed too.
- ...Dead is dead. You don't get to come back from that.
—Benjamin Linus
- MacGyver: Mac's grandfather Harry Jackson is killed off for real in season 4.
- M*A*S*H: When McLean Stevenson left the series and declared he was never coming back, the writers took advantage by having his character, Col. Henry Blake, be killed when the airplane he was a passenger in — tragically, Blake was on his way home, having served his time — is shot down. The moment Blake's death is revealed (in the Season 3 finale) was one of the most pin-dropping moments in television to that time.
- King Uther on Merlin. And by the time the series wraps up, the list includes Elyan, Lancelot, Gwaine, Mordred, Morgana, and Arthur. And that's not even counting the smaller characters!
- In Mystery Science Theater 3000, TV's Frank always comes back every time Dr. Forrester kills him. However, in the Season 6 finale, Torgo takes him into Second Banana Heaven, though he does return as a ghost for the end of the episode to press the button one last time.
- The Season 8 premier mentions that Dr. Forrester himself, the Big Bad of the first seven seasons and the movie, was smothered by Pearl, who takes his place in Seasons 8-10. Although technically, with a time jump back to the present day years before his demise, Forrester is still alive during Seasons 9 and 10. However, he is confirmed dead by the time of Season 12, as Larry obtains and scatters his and Frank's ashes.
- A key element of Nikita is faked deaths, meaning many people who are declared or believed dead later turn out not to be. That said, a fair amount of people do get killed off for real—half the regular cast bites it for real before the series is over.
- Sembene on Penny Dreadful dies in the penultimate episode of season two.
- Power Rangers in Space To save the universe, Zordon has to make an Heroic Sacrifice to launch an attack to save the universe. Unlike other like Gem and Gemma from Power Rangers RPM or kendrix from ''Power Rangers Lost Galaxy", he stay dead.
- Power Rangers RPM: The series ends with Venjix seemingly surviving his fate as his virus hid in Scott's morpher. Come Power Rangers Beast Morphers, this gets confirmed as the villain of that season, Evox, was Venjix in a new form. In the final episode, the Rangers use Morph-X infused Human DNA to corrupt his base code, rendering him unable to escape and survive his new body's destruction and destroying Evox/Venjix for good.
- The Rookie (2018): Jackson bites it in the Season 4 opener when one of La Fiera's gunmen kills him.
- Generalissimo Francisco Franco on Saturday Night Live.
- Susan Ross, George's occasional girlfriend and eventual fiancée in Seinfeld, was famously killed off at the end of Season 7 when she was poisoned by an excess of cheap adhesive while licking the envelopes to send out the wedding invitations.
- Mr. Hooper of Sesame Street is a famous example of this in a children's show. This was their way of dealing the death of Mr. Hooper's actor Will Lee.
- On Smallville: Main/recurring characters who are now dead include Whitney Fordman, Dr. Virgil Swann, Jason and Genevieve Teague, Sheriff Nancy Adams, Jonathan Kent, Lionel Luthor, Henry James "Jimmy" Olsen, and Davis Bloome. Lex is most likely a case of Not Quite Dead or Never Found the Body.
- Dr. Fraiser on Stargate SG-1.
- She does come back - sort of - as a member of an SG-1 team (which also includes Martouf) from an alternate universe. It actually does bring a certain degree of satisfactory closure.
- Lt. Ford, Carson Beckett, and Elizabeth Weir on Stargate Atlantis. Beckett was resurrected via cloning. Ford's fate was left up in the air. Weir was turned into a replicator and left floating in space.
- And Sgt. Hunter Riley on Stargate Universe.
- SG-1 has a (somewhat distracting) habit of giving recurring villains with a bad habit of coming back from the dead ambiguous death scenes in which you never see the body. ...in at least two cases, Apophis and Hathor, said villains were actually never seen again.
- After Apophis is finally killed off, Jack O'Neill even lampshades this tendency, revising his 100% certainty that their four-season opponent was dead down to "99% sure". Then the guy returns in hallucinations and Alternate Timelines.
- The Stargate: Continuum movie finally has Ba'al's last clone killed off at the end. At least, that's what we think.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation killed off Tasha Yar in the first season episode "Skin of Evil". Denise Crosby left the show because she felt her character didn't have enough to do in the episodes. The producers probably felt that there were too many characters anyway and needed to trim the cast a bit. So they apparently took it pretty well. In fact, they worked with Crosby to make her departing episode special in terms of Star Trek, the show that was responsible for the Redshirt trope. Also, driven home is the fact that Yar's death was somewhat pointless and understated and not the type of dramatic heroic death usually reserved for main characters. But then, there was the episode Yesterday's Enterprise which resurrects her in a way (only to kill her again) but in an alternate timeline.
- Spock's father Sarek, who'd first appeared in the original series nearly 25 years earlier, died in "Unification I".
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did the same with Jadzia Dax at the end of the sixth season. Trill being what they are though, it didn't take long to come up with a replacement character in the form of Ezri. Though some fans view her as a Replacement Scrappy as a result.
- In the DS9 finale, Weyoun is killed. Since he's a clone, this would normally result in the next Weyoun being activated, but the destruction of the cloning facility several episodes ago left him Out of Continues, so he stays dead this time.
- In the Grand Finale of Star Trek: Picard, this is the ultimate fate of the original Borg Collective with the death of the original Borg Queen, finishing the job Admiral Janeway started in the Grand Finale of Star Trek: Voyager.
- Supernatural - Even if some of them do appear afterwards (through flashbacks, time travel, and the sort), the Winchesters' father John, Sam's girlfriend Jess, Ash, all the psychic children in the Second Season Finale, Azazel, Bela (Word of God that she's never coming back), Pamela, Lilith, Ruby, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, Zachariah, Rufus, Balthazar, Raphael, Bobby Singer, Meg, Anna, Abaddon, Tessa, Metatron, Eileen, Gabriel, Lucifer, and even Crowley all die for real.
- Though it hasn't happened yet, the Reaper Jessica says that although Rowena casts a spell that will revive her if she is killed no matter how she dies, Sam will kill her for real. It is suggested, but not confirmed, that her Heel–Face Turn will spare her from this fate (it isn't specified whether Sam is inevitably destined to kill her or whether he's simply the only one that can, and she will live forever if he doesn't).
- Unlike Power Rangers and even it's sister series Kamen Rider (which is in general, a lot darker), heroes in the various Super Sentai series have and will die and stay dead when it's their time. Some of the crossover movies, like the one between Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger and Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger had Shurikenger be revealed as alive, though it's later revealed in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger that they can be resurrected temporarily to handle unfinished business.
- Teen Wolf:
- Victoria Argent commits suicide instead of becoming a werewolf.
- Season 3A & 3B are peppered with deaths, some planned, some written in because the actor left. Erica, Boyd, Kali, Jennifer, Aiden, and Allison all die this season. Especially shocking was Allison's death, as she had been a main character and arguably the female lead since season 1, and her death was only written in because her actress wanted to move on.
- In Tinsel Monica Ade-Williams and Reginald Okoh.
- The original Stig from Top Gear (UK), even though they Never Found the Body. Only a single black glove was recovered.
- Twin Peaks: While death tends to be final for most characters, the supernatural elements of the show do allow some characters to either stay alive in one form or another or continue to exist as a type of spirit. Philip Jeffries, Laura Palmer, and Leland Palmer all manage to stay around in one way or another. The same cannot be said for Windom Earle whose confrontation with Cooper ends with BOB taking Earle's soul. While Cooper and Annie make it out, Earle is definitively dead.
- The Ultra Series rarely does it, but when it does happen, it's always a real shocker.
- Episode 37 of Return of Ultraman sees the deaths of Goh's friend and girlfriend Ken and Aki Sakata when the evil alien Nackle murders them in order to break Goh emotionally for Ultraman Jack's battle against him and Black King.
- Ultraman Leo has one of the most infamous moments on Japanese television, in which almost the entire cast is killed in the first seven minutes of the 40th episode by the jellyfish kaiju Silver Bloome, including Tohru's little sister Kaoru and Dan Moroboshi (though he gets better). Although some Suspiciously Similar Substitutes are introduced for the remaining 11 episodes, the fact that only Gen and Tohru are left is still considered one of the most shocking swerves in Ultra Series history.
- Ultraman 80: The episode that introduced Takeshi/80's childhood female friend Ryoko/Yulian saw this happen to Emi Jouno when she sacrifices her life to save Takeshi and Ryoko from the alien tyrant Daiō Galtan.
- The finale of Ultraman Geed, in which the series' recurring villain Ultraman Belial (ever since 2009) serves as the main villain, concludes with Belial's permanent death after terrorizing the Ultras regularly for eight years. Any future appearances from Belial are either clones, or alternate reality copies of the villain.
- In a similar vein, Belial's successor, Ultraman Tregear, serves as a major antagonist in the following series, Ultraman R/B. But after multiple seasons and two movies, Tregear finally bites it in Ultraman Taiga The Movie: New Generation Climax, where his source of power, the Malicious Demon Monster Grimdo, gets obliterated, and with Grimdo's death Tregear also ends up fading away for good.
- The Vampire Diaries has seen the deaths of Tanner, Zach, Logan, Vicki, Bree, Grams, Ben, Harper, Pearl, Anna, Mayor Lockwood, Mason Lockwood, Rose, Luka, Jonah, Isobel's suicide, Jenna, John, Jules, Greta, and Alaric.
- The Walking Dead has built up to the deaths of several main characters. Sophia was discovered to be a walker after six episodes of buildup looking for her, and she was put down with a headshot. Dale (who survived much longer in the comics) died after being attacked by a walker on Hershel's farm at night. Shane (who originally didn't survive the first arc in the comics) lives longer but then is killed by Rick during a confrontation.
- Lori, Andrea, Merle, Hershel, T-Dog, Bob, Beth, and various other minor characters are all dead as of Season 5.
- Cigarette-Smoking Man and Alex Krycek of The X-Files are examples of characters who had cheated death (usually because they Never Found the Body) so many times that their real deaths (by being at ground zero of a missile blast and shot right between the eyes, respectively) had to be made very explicit, so as to make it clear that, yes, this time they were well and truly dead. And Krycek managed to kind-of return for the Finale anyway.
- William Mulder (Mulder's father) and the informants Deep Throat and X both died for real (even though Mulder sees Deep Throat in a dream and X as a ghost in "The Truth"). Mulder also cheated death by dying and then coming back to life after being abducted in season 8.
- Warehouse 13 has Daniel Dickinson, Pete and Myka's former boss and friend, killed early in Season 2. The Big Bad of Seasons 1, James MacPherson, is killed in the Season 2 premiere. Benedict Valda performs a Heroic Sacrifice in Season 2. Finally, Leena in Season 4.
