Cliff Hanger - Television Tropes & Idioms

Is this the tragic end of me?
Or will the sequel set me free?

—The Aquabats, "Stuck In A Movie!"

The situation's turned critical, and things can't get any worse. And this is how they're ending the episode? Oh, for crying out loud! I hate it when they pull this.
—Lina Inverse (narrating), Slayers TRY, episode 9

A Cliff Hanger ends an Act Break, episode, or even a whole season (or a film or novel in a series) with some or all of the main characters in peril of some kind and the audience is made to wait for the outcome. The To Be Continued caption is often used here. Typically the longer the viewer is made to wait, the larger the seeming peril. Indeed, this can be a Downer Ending to the part just finished — although many apparent perils and catastrophes are not as serious as they appear.

A Cliff Hanger can also be centered around surprising revelations; either one just made, or one being saved for the 'hanger's resolution.

Named for the old Saturday matinée film serials which would frequently leave a character literally hanging from the side of a cliff, revealing how the character escaped in the next episode.

The season type of 'hanger has a flaw: if the show gets canceled, the 'hanger stays unresolved. A few such 'hangers are listed below. This is not to be confused with a Bolivian Army Ending, which is an intentionally unresolved cliffhanger as an ending. If this happens, the cliffhanger may be resolved in a movie or miniseries later on. Or, it may not... and that's why we have Fan Fiction.

Stories need not end with just one cliffhanger; there can be one for every independent plot thread if the writers think the audience will stand for it.

Myth Arc, Mind Screw, and Jigsaw Puzzle Plot series all use cliffhangers as often as possible, some of them with every episode.

This site

contains a comprehensive list of unresolved cliffhangers.

Not to be confused with an area for aircraft set into a mountainside (a cliff hangar), the sort used to hang up clothing (a coat hanger), the laserdisc-based video game using footage from Lupin III, or the movie of the same name; you might be able to find that here (or here)

Resolved Cliffhangers:

Anime and Manga

Even anime has done season-ending 'hangers, with The Big O and Zoids Fuzors, not to mention a cliffhanger of truly staggering size at the end of Season 1 of Code Geass (mentioned in detail below).
The anime Code Geass ends its first season on a particularly high Cliff Hanger: the rebellion is collapsing, the entire school is being held hostage by a student with a bomb, the Anti Hero's identity is revealed to his now bloodthirsty former best friend, and the situation devolves into a rage-filled Mexican Standoff... just to fade to black in time for a single gunshot.
- Let's be perfectly honest here. Code Geass has a very, very, VERY nasty habit of leaving cliffhangers at the end of every single episode, at least in the first season. The season is basically a 25-episode cliffhanger, ending with a scene that quite often leaves viewers screaming at the top of their lungs at their screens. This troper can only wait to see how the Adult Swim boards react when that one gets thrown out...
  - It's not nearly a big a deal in the Adult Swim broadcast, as there was only an extra week between the first season finale and the second season premiere (not to mention the second season premiere came with a slightly less impossible airslot and was viewable on Adult Swim's website before that).
- And then comes the second season, where every. kitten. Episode. Ends with a cliffhanger of cosmic proportions and every second one is a Wham Episode, to boot.
Parodied in the first episode of Magical Project S, which ends with the then-faceless Pixy Misa saying "you'll have to wait until next week to see who I am".
When DN Angel was put on a hiatus by its writer, fans were left hanging for two years in which Daisuke was setting off to find his kidnapped love interest, and gets offered by his morally questionable rival for help. Fans were left waiting for two years until the manga was started up again and the arc was resolved.

Film

Film does this too, especially when doing the "two films at once" thing. Star Wars seems to have started the trend with the ending of "Empire", with Han Solo being captured and the Empire getting back the Death Star plans. Other examples include the endings of the first two Back To The Future movies (each ending with a "To Be Continued..." at the end) and the second Pirates Of The Caribbean film (Jack gets captured/killed and everyone gets ready to go rescue him).
Doctor Who was famous for this and did once have a companion (Romana in this case) hanging off a cliff (Episode 1 of "The Stones of Blood" to be exact). In Episode 1 of "Dragonfire", the Doctor himself climbed over a railing for no apparent reason and then dangled from an umbrella making stupid faces.

Literature

Meta-example: The cliffhanger was part of Scherezade's desperate gambit to keep herself from being executed in Arabian Nights, as she told the evil king a series of stories for one thousand and one nights, ending each night on a cliffhanger so very enticing that he could not execute her, because then he would not get to hear the ending. Thus, the cliffhanger is Older Than Print.
Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars ended with Dejah Thoris, Thuvia, and Phaidor all trapped in the Temple of the Sun for a year — and with Phaidor trying to stab Dejah Thoris. John Carter has to live out that year in ignorance.

Live Action TV

Lost regularly milks cliffhangers of both types for all they're worth, and Heroes is jumping in with both feet too.
Also a staple of J.J. Abrams' other serial Alias, as as acknowledged nod to The Perils of Pauline. Almost to the point of annoyance.
Peril 'hanger: At the end of Angel Season Three, Angel is put in box and sunk to the bottom of the ocean and Cordelia becomes a higher being and disappears. Huge cliffhanger.
Every single Farscape season ending.
Revelation 'hanger: When Clark asks Lois to marry him on Lois And Clark and she says, "Who's asking? Clark or Superman?" This cliffhanger lasted for four months.
- Four months? It was a year in the UK. Frustration ensued, especially as UK viewers are less habituated to cliffhangers...
  - Say the people who invented Doctor Who
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr made regular use of cliffhangers. The early episodes had two cliffhangers (one for each act break). Later episodes had one.
Fastlane has two major characters being taken over by Jay Mohr, and another jabbed with a potentially-fatal overdose of drugs.
The first season of Stargate Atlantis ended with the city of Atlantis on the verge of another wraith attack, Ford captured by the wraith, Colonel Everett surrounded by them, and Major Sheppard flying a booby-trapped puddle jumper on a suicide mission towards a Wraith Hive-ship.
- The second season ended with several Wraith hive ships headed towards Earth.
- The third season ended with the city stuck in the middle of empty space with limited air and a failed hyperdrive. Even if Jewel Staite was entering the show as Kaylee rather than Doctor Keller, it's a bit tricky to imagine them fixing it.
- Season four ended with the slightly less impressive cliffhanger of an building collapsing on the team.
Likewise, parent show Stargate SG-1 ended almost all of its seasons with cliffhangers of varying magnitude, all with the ominous "To Be Continued..." caption.
Dallas relied on a season ending Cliff Hanger every year. The most famous was "Who Shot JR?" in 1980, which lasted from March 21st to November 7th.
Star Trek has had a Cliff Hanger in nearly every non-final season since Star Trek The Next Generation's Season Three. It's no coincidence that that cliffhanger, "The Best of Both Worlds", is considered to be the best episode of the entire series (and good arguments are made that it's the best episode of the entire franchise. Edith Keeler might disagree, though...)
- This one is particularly interesting in that it cleared the way for cliffhangers, previously a staple for soap operas, to be used in more "serious" TV shows.
- At the time, this cliffhanger had particular punch because it was unknown whether Patrick Stewart would return for future seasons; the writers left the second half open for this reason.
24 typically uses a cliffhanger at the end of each episode. The show also featured a season-ending cliffhanger in the final seconds of season 2, which, irritatingly enough, was subverted when the third season picked up three years later and the cliffhanger had already been resolved.
The beginning of the new Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Planet" has a Shout Out to the Cliff Hangers of the old series. In The Teaser, the Ood, who look like Lovecraftian horrors, walk toward the Doctor and Rose chanting "We must feed", and the close-ups and spinning camera angles match the old Who's Cliff Hangers perfectly. Naturally, after the titles, the Ood are shown to be perfectly nice and friendly, with their apparent viciousness being a Phlebotinum Breakdown: "We must feed..." — whacks the translation orb — "...you, if you are hungry. Do you want refreshments?"
ER does this pretty much every season.
CSI ended its seventh season with Sara Sidle stuck in the middle of the desert (during a rainstorm) and trapped under a car. This was because the Serial Killer had put her there.
- Its eighth ended with Warrick Brown apparently shot dead by the Undersheriff.
Season 3 of Babylon 5 ends not only on a cliffhanger, but a cliffjumper as the main character flings himself into a bottomless chasm.
Season 3 of The Sentinel ended with one of the main characters having been drowned in a fountain by an evil female Sentinel and a To Be Continued...at which point the show was cancelled. Fan outrage helped get it uncancelled for a half-season, long enough to resolve the storyline and come up with a less depressing finale.
Season One of Supernatural had demonic possession of John and Dean being tortured and Sam is trying to get them both to the hospital, saying that everything will be fine... and then *WHAM!* a giant truck totals the Impala, leaving all three men bloody and unconscious.
- This was nothing compared to season 3. Where Dean dies and the last shot is of him in Hell.
EVERY season finale of One Tree Hill.
Third Watch had Cliff Hangers after its third, fourth and fifth seasons - the latter two both involving Bosco, Faith, Cruz, and a shooting.
Even sitcoms aren't immune - most of Frasier's season finales ended on a cliffhanger - the biggest one being the end of Season 7, where Niles and Daphne finally got together.
- Even the Grand Finale ended on a minor cliffhanger. The only seasons not to end with one were 1, 2, 3 and 6.
Smallville. Every single season of Smallville.
The first and fourth seasons of The West Wing end on extremely tense cliffhangers.
- The second season doesn't, if you've been paying any sort of attention, but many viewers apparently missed the cues.
"You aint my muvva!" "Yes I am!!" Dun Dun dundundundun...
In an unusual move, the second season of the light-hearted Big Wolf On Campus ended with one of the main characters a stone statue after making a Heroic Sacrifice for his best friend. All the more dramatic because the show nearly didn't come back for a third season, but fortunately it was renewed and he was saved.
An intentional (I think) cliffhanger, or at least the show wasn't unexpectedly cancelled;
Green Wing - both series end with a number of major characters in an ambulance, literally teetering half-on and half-off the edge of a cliff. The first one is resolved in the second series, the second is (sort-of) dealt with in a one-off special episode.
The third season of Desperate Housewives concluded with Edie Britt's apparent suicide after Carlos dumped her. The fourth season premiere revealed that she had actually faked her suicide in order to win Carlos back.
JAG had several cliffhangers. The first season ended with Harm being arrested for murder, though same episode was a Missing Episode and later adapted, thus bordering on Canon Discontinuity. The third season ended with Harm and Mac about to be shot down in a Russian jet while looking for Harm's father. The sixth ended with Harm lost at sea, having ejected from his F-14 trying to get back in time to catch Mac's wedding. The seventh ends with Bud stepping on a landmine while trying to prevent an Afghan boy from doing likewise. The eighth ended with Harm leaving JAG to save Mac and Webb against orders. The ninth ends with Webb apparently killed and the Admiral's retirement. The series itself ends with something like a cliffhanger, leaving the audience wondering if either Harm or Mac will retire after they decide to marry and whether they'll end up in London or San Diego afterwards.
Greys Anatomy's fifth season ended with a cliffhanger. Either Izzie or George might be headed for the big OR in the sky. Or both.
An early British example was the TV spy series Callan, whose second season ended with an episode where Callan was kidnapped and brainwashed into believing that Hunter, the head of his section, was an enemy agent. Callan kills Hunter and is himself shot; the episode and season ended with him mortally wounded and gasping to Meres, a fellow agent, "Toby, old man... I've been had!" The next season dealt with Callan's recovery and return to operations while being treated with extreme caution by his superiors.

Video Games

In Golden Sun, you have only managed to climb up one of the four Elemental Lighthouses when you reach the final Dungeon, Venus Lighthouse. If you haven't been reading a guide (or spoiled by this example) you'd assume you were halfway through the game. To be fair, the game does provide some hints, the Infinity Plus One Sword is contained inside, and the music does lend the tower a tone of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. But once you reach the top, the game throws both the main antagonists of the story at you, you beat them, then they combine and throw the Final Boss at you. Once you beat that, the game just ends. The missing friends are still missing, the party travels off to parts unknown, and the credits roll. Quite an impressive feat, making a very big cliffhanger that wasn't resolved for a few years when the second game came out.
A (particularly frustrating) example with Halo 2: Cortana in the clutches of the Gravemind. Miranda, Arbiter and Johnson stuck on Delta Halo. Master Chief emerging from slipspace, stowed away on an enemy ship, to find Earth's defenses about to be overwhelmed by the Covenant fleet. Roll credits with nothing more than a heroic one-liner. Only partially resolved with Halo 3 - We see Master Chief ariving on earth, but we don't see how Arbiter and co get back. How MC actually got off the enemy ship is explored in a spin-off comic series, and Cortans's fate is a plot-point for the rest of the game.

Webcomics

Parody: Terror Island theorem 099 ends with a caption saying "Cliffhanger!" but it was resolved in two days, which is the usual time between strips.
Whether on purpose or not, Misfile's weekend breaks usualy fall just as it seems some new tidbit of plot information will be revealed or that something exiting will happen. Fans of the comic have taken to calling them "Chrishangers," after the artist.
The author of the webcomic Sequential Art recently managed to pick the most irritating part to his break with the comic.

Web Original

Spoofed on Homestar Runner in the Strong Bad Email "cliffhangers", where Strong Bad is asked by a fan to "Resolve all the cliffhangers, please". After showing three mock cliffhangers, the email ends on an actual cliffhanger when Strong Bad's Lappy 486 computer gets stolen.
The online novel The Saga Of Tuck has (for now) 142 chapters, each almost always ending on a cliff hanger.

Western Animation

Subverted in the South Park episode "Professor Chaos", which appears to end on a cliffhanger: "Will Professor Chaos' latest plot succeed and be the final undoing of Earth? And which boy has been chosen as the replacement for Kenny? And which of these South Park residents was killed and will never be seen again?" Right before the episode ends, all these questions are answered (with "No", "Tweek", and "Ms. Choksondik").
- South Park also squeezed the concept for all the humor and frustration they could in the "Who is Eric Cartman's Father" two-parter, "Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut" and "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut". They teased the fans mercilessly by splitting the two episodes up with an unrelated full-length Terrance and Phillip story.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) its fond of the season-ending cliffhanger: three of its seven (As of 2008) seasons (1,2,4) end this way. Season 4's cliffhanger is notable for being in danger of never being properly resolved, since for never-quite-adequately-explained reasons, the people behind the show decided to skip season 5 and go from season 4 to season 6 without explanation, ignoring the cliffhanger. After several delays, the "Lost Season", as it came to be called, began airing on February 2008—a year and a half later than it would have, had it aired normally.
Happens in The Simpsons: Who shot Mr. Burns? Obvious homage/parody of Dallas.
- Also spoofed by the show on a number of occasions. At the end of one Holloween episode, the last few seconds reveal a surprise ending where Mr. Burns' head has been grafted unto Homer's body. The episode ends with a (fake) cliffhanger and a teaser for next week's episode, where Homer is denied a free spaghetti dinner because Mr. Burns has plans to meet with the queen of Holland that night. Of course, it's all a spoof and the next real episode has everything back to normal.
Beast Wars tended to pull out the stops at the end of a season. According to the writers, they were never sure if there was going to be another season, so they wanted each cliffhanger to possibly be the end of everything.
Sonic Chronicles ends with a major cliffhanger. After getting brutally smacked down by Super Sonic, Imperator Ix commands the wormhole connecting Sonic's world with the Twilight Cage to close before he disappears. The whole team rushes right on out to the Cyclone to jet and get the hell out of dodge before they find themselves trapped for all eternity. And lest you not forget how the flow of time differs in the Twilight Cage with how Ix could still be alive after four thousand years, take a moment to remember who stayed behind before you crossed dimensions and what he could possibly do with all that time...
- How's Sonic Chronicles: Eggman's Revenge for a sequel title?
  - I perfer Sonic Chronicles: The Eggman Empire.

Unresolved Cliffhangers:

Anime

Is Kamui really dead? No one but CLAMP knows, since the series has been on hiatus since 2003.