Bolivian Army Cliffhanger - Television Tropes & Idioms

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

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

Compare Bolivian Army Ending and Our Hero Is Dead. Ending Trope so beware Unmarked Spoilers.

Examples:

Live Action TV

Robin Hood Series 3 ends with Nottingham Castle being blown up and Gisbourne, Isabella and Sheriff Vaisey all apparantly dead too. (It's somewhat invalid considering the show was cancelled).
CSINY 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.
One season of Dynasty ended with a terrorist attack on a wedding... long story... and everyone apparently dead. The first episode of the next season was one of the highest rated episodes in that show's history. The resolution was that a couple of extras got killed. The cop-out is considered the show's Jumping The Shark.
Lost season 5 ended 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 did detonate than the alternative. Really.
Both Homicide Life On The Street and NCIS ended seasons with the entire cast getting reassigned. Less fatal than the other situations, but the same effect of being able to write out any character they want.
The final episode of Blakes Seven ended with all the heroes( and we mean ALL the heroes, even ones that had been Put On A Bus in previous seasons) in assorted, apparently unescapable 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.
- The second season ended with the crew launching a seemingly suicidal Delaying Action 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 Army Wives 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 ER.
Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Best of Both Worlds Part 1" ended this way, with the Enterprise's Wave Motion Gun aimed at Picard and the cube that assimilated him. This coincided nicely with rumours that Patrick Stewart might be quitting, making for a very tense summer.
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 Charmed season 3 could have killed off Prue and Piper, and actually was used to kill off Prue.
The finale for Season 1 of CBS's Jericho 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.
Criminal Minds did this in its third season finale, showing several identical black SU Vs, each a destination for a pair of major characters. The episode ends with one of the SU Vs, not specifically identified, exploding. Season 4's opener, however, reveals that the only casualty was the single minor character among the possible victims.
In The Guardian'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.
Greys Anatomy season 5 ended with both Izzy and George flatlining. Izzy survived, George didn't.
Made In Canada 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 Dark Angel, which may be considered an unintentional Bolivian Army Ending.
Desperate Housewives 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.
The West Wing 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?".

Western Animation

Beast Wars second season ended up with Megatron messing up the whole of reality.

Video Games

Phantasy Star II ended like this, with Lutz transporting the other members of your party to the your location to aid you in fighting a HORDE of Earthmen after defeating the final boss. Kind of a stupid thing to do in retrospect because the only people that actually know what really happened on the ship and with Mother Brain are (you guessed it) the members of your party, and with them all (possibly) dead, no one would be able to tell the world the truth.
- That's just a Bolivian Army Ending, although Word Of God says that your party actually WINS.
The mission "Of Their Own Accord" in Modern Warfare 2 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.
At the end of XIII, the conspirator's identity is revealed and the hero is left in a potentially deadly situation. Poor sales, however, meant that it would never be resolved in game form.
Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow ends on a cliffhanger with Gabe and Teresa critically wounded or dead.
Driv3r ends with Tanner flatlining after being shot by the Big Bad's Last Breath Bullet. It is unlikely that this will be resolved.