Tony Almeida was believed to have been killed in Season 5, but promos for Season 7 show him alive, and as a villain. He isn't.
Charles Logan receives a potentially fatal knife wound in a Season 6 episode, but is last seen in an ambulance, thus leaving his fate unclear (especially by 24 standards). He returns two seasons later, and in the series finale he attempts to commit suicide by putting a bullet into his head. And while he does indeed do so, the bullet is apparently off the mark by just enough to leave him "possibly brain-damaged" instead of actually dead.
"Homie's Dead" has a guy seemingly being killed by an attack from a burglar, but when his wife's attempt to resuscitate him is interrupted, he's revived by Lazarus syndrome and scares the burglar, sending the latter off a balcony to his death.
"Master E-Raced" begins with a German officer being shot in the head by an American trooper during the last days of World War II, but the bullet doesn't actually do him in and he wakes up after his assailant assumes he's dead. Decades later, after being placed in a relocation program for ex-Nazis, he bangs his head while looking through his fridge, dislodging the bullet still in his brain, which then finishes the job when it cuts through a major blood vessel.
Played with in the Season 1 finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The Big Bad has been defeated and his lifeless body is carted away. A few scenes later we see him alive and dragging his broken body to a machine that will replace his damaged organs with cybernetics. He emerges stronger than ever and then is promptly disintegrated by Coulson. Since the show is based on comic books, the writers were keenly aware of the prevalence of this trope and decided not to play along.
The first crime scene of the Angie Tribeca pilot is Angie arriving for an elderly woman lying dead on the ground. The woman suddenly wakes up with a smile and asks what's going on. The cops respond by putting a sheet over her, still acting like she's dead.
Also played comically in the finale of Blackadder the Third: After being shot by Lord Wellington, Prince George awakes, remembering he had a cigarillo case just where he was shot (just like Blackadder, who had switched places with "Prince Mini-Brain"). However, he immediately finds out he left the case in the dresser, and finally dies for good.
Burn Notice: Larry, yes Dead Larry. His original "death" involved walking into an oil refinery before it blew up, which was his equivalent of taking "early retirement". The subtitles have referred to him as "Larry: Undead Spy", "Larry: Spy with Nine Lives", and "Larry: Unfriendly Ghost". Sam and Fiona have more than once offered to make it stick themselves, and by Season 5 it would seem his luck finally ran out.
In Season 3, Chuck shot Shaw in Europe and watched him tumble off a bridge into the river below. He ignored the entire point of this trope, which is: When you shoot someone and they fall in the water they are NEVER dead.
CSI: Miami almost does this with Tim Speedle, who was killed by a misfire of his gun during a shootout in Season 3, but had evidence of his survival found in Season 6. Cleverly subverted at the end, when it's revealed the "evidence" turns out to be head trauma-induced hallucinations from Speedle's best friend and a lab tech using his stolen credit card after the incident.
Someone is pronounced dead, stolen, dropped in the sea and then starts coughing up water, he turns out to be part of a hibernation experiment and now is in a coma.
Shane Casey reappears to threaten Danny after falling from a lighthouse.
When Davros appeared in a classic serial he was invariably killed off, and yet always managed to get inexplicably better in time for his next appearance. This even included dismemberment.
Time Lord regeneration in general works as this. When one is on the brink of death, a Time Lord can release a massive amount of internal energy that restores his/her body to pristine health, albeit while completely changing his/her physique and bringing out different personality aspects. The Doctor himself is the main case of this.
"The Long Game": The corpses who were killed by the Jagrafess on Floor 500 aren't completely dead. They're kept just animate enough to run Satellite 5's computer systems, though they have no emotion or ability... or at least, it seems like they don't. The corpses collapse as a result of Cathica's sabotage, but the body of Eva/Suki is still animate enough to grab the Editor and prevent him from fleeing the resulting explosion.
"Arachnids in the UK": The entire Giant Spider infestation happened because among several dead spiders thrown out with a biology lab's waste, one of them was still alive, and got dumped into an illegal landfill by a cheaply run waste management company, right into an environment where it could grow huge.
"The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos": It turns out that Tzim-Sha, the villain of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", survived (barely) five DNA bombs going off inside of him. While the companions are shocked to see him, the Doctor is just confused about how "Tim Shaw" wound up on Ranskoor Av Kolos instead of his home planet, confirming that she never intended to let him die when she gave him his recall teleport back.
Played straight repeatedly in Farscape with every character, but interestingly zigzagged near the end of the first season when Aeryn was stabbed. The episode closed with John saying how lucky she was that the knife missed her heart. It seemed like a very conventional case of not quite dead. Then the next episode subverted this when Aeryn revealed that the wound had done internal damage, and she was probably going to die soon.
The best example is definitely Scorpius, with appropriate Lampshade Hanging by John:
John: Kryptonite. Silver bullet. Buffy? What's it gonna take — to keep you in the grave?
Father Jack Hackett from Father Ted. Jack drank floor polish which only brought about the symptoms of death including lack of pulse, rigor mortis, decomposition...
Howland Reed is a heroic version, given that it was to save his friend. Reed gets the drop on Dayne because he was believed dead or dying from his wounds.
The Hound managed to hang on after his duel with Brienne, and survived to return in Season 6.
After Oberyn Martell seemingly kills Gregor Clegane in a trial by combat, Gregor trips, and then kills Oberyn when his guard is down.
They had a bit of fun with this when Sylar and Peter Petrelli faced off for the second time in Season 1.
Sylar: Didn't I kill you? Peter: Didn't take.
Arthur Petrelli used his super powers to knock Hiro Nakamura over the edge of a building. When Arthur teleports away, assuming that Hiro is finished, (because No One Could Survive That!), the camera pans over to the edge of the building, where he seems to be dangling from a flagpole for dear life. Even Evil Overlords make mistakes.
Nathan Petrelli and Sylar both tend to invoke this trope at the end of every season. In all seriousness, these guys die at the end of a season and are usually confirmed alive by the time the next Graphic Novel comes out. This is taken to its (il)logical conclusion in the third season finale (Nathan is "resurrected" in Sylar's body), where both appear to be Not Quite Dead, in their own ways.
In one episode of I, Claudius, Caligula orders Claudius to be thrown off a bridge, assuming that he will drown. Claudius is dragged away, only to return in the same scene, dripping wet and covered in pond weed. Fortunately, Caligula is too amused by this to try again. Earlier in the series, a slave interrupts Caligula as he announces the death of Tiberius — not only is he not dead, but he's feeling a lot better and wants his dinner. Caligula promptly has him smothered, goes back outside, and cheerfully announced that the emperor is definitely dead this time.
Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "The Thing Lay Still", because Louis de Pointe du Lac can't bring himself to burn Lestat de Lioncourt's body because he still loves him in spite of his (ex-)boyfriend's Domestic Abuse, Louis and Claudia's murder attempt is exactly that — an attempt. At the garbage dump, Lestat unlocks the trunk that he has been stashed in from the inside (the inner locks were installed by him and Louis), and his arm pokes out from the makeshift coffin to grab a nearby rat, proving that he survived.
The Iron Heart has a habit of having villains who are thought to have been dead in past episodes show up alive later on, either with flashbacks as to how they survived, or none at all, making their survival unexplained. Though they do get Killed Off for Real in later episodes.
Mikhail of Lost does this twice. The first time, he was shoved into a sonic fence and assumed dead. He later claimed it wasn't set to a lethal level. The second time, he was impaled by a spear, but managed to live long enough to blow himself up.
In the Season 4 finale, Keamy is Left for Dead, only to later surprise Locke and Ben in the Orchid.
Back in Season 1, when we are led to believe that Shannon has been killed by the 'monster,' only to find out that it was just Boone's hallucination.
Many thought Richard died after being punched by the smoke Monster in the penultimate episode. Not only he shows up in the Grand Finalebut is one of the few to end the episode alive.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adar claims he killed Sauron, except Sauron survived the assassination attempt and took the identity of Halbrand at some point before the current events.
In MacGyver the character Murdoc always ends the show by seeming to die in "No One Could Survive That!" type circumstances only to reappear alive, though often worse for wear a few episodes or seasons later.
Zig-zag: The M*A*S*H episode "The Late Captain Pierce" has the Army precipitating the biggest reel of red tape when they declare Hawkeye as dead.
In another episode, the national anthem of Luxembourg is played over the camp PA system to honor a captain in that country's army, missing and presumed dead. A patient in heavy bandages and casts gets out of his bed in post-op and hobbles onto the assembly ground, and is promptly identified as that captain.
In The Monkees episode "Monkees A La Carte", the Monkees, in an effort to save their favorite Italian restaurant and other Italian restaurants from being taken over by mobster Fuselli and a syndicate he has just met for the first time, disguise themselves as "The Purple Flower Gang" and "Monkee" with their plans, unintentionally causing the syndicate to get into a gunfight. Despite Micky's best efforts to break up the fight, the syndicate (including Fuselli's thug Rocco) shoots each other dead, but Fuselli is the only survivor... or is he? Stuttering gangster Benny the Book uses his last bit of strength to shoot Fuselli dead before succumbing to his own wound.
In Power Rangers Zeo, King Mondo is destroyed yet somehow he returns towards the end of the series, only to be blown up again. Even after that he appears in Power Rangers in Space. An earlier example in Zeo was when Adam assumed Rito and Goldar didn't survive the explosion of the Command Center. The viewers soon learned he was wrong.
Big Bad Master Org managed to survive several finishers that would normally destroy a villain in Power Rangers. During his first demise he appeared dead when he lost his powers battling Cole's Super Mode and was soon tossed off a cliff by the new Big Bad Mandilok. He got better and made Mandilok Quite Dead (though he did revive him and the other Org generals to serve as guardians during his final transformation. Presumably Brainwashing was involved, which he can do.) After he managed to transform to a stronger form, he took two finishers directly and some other zord attacks until one more finisher destroyed his body. However the org heart survived and was still beating. It then brings back Master Org and he proceeds to resume his rampage.
Zen-Aku is seemingly destroyed after Merrick is purified of the evil of the mask, only to reappear wanting to merge with Merrick again. Even after he's destroyed in that battle he appears again at the end of the series seeking redemption and begins following Merrick.
Zeltrax from Power Rangers: Dino Thunder has to set some kind of record. His backstory is being a former friend of Tommy's who was thought dead. He goes on to eat a Finishing Move at the end of a climactic battle against Tommy on his airship, which soon explodes from the damage it had taken during the battle. Dead, right? Nope, he comes back, though his mind isn't what it used to be. He eventually gets his own Super Mode and fights Conner's Super Mode, and gets quite kablooified. ...and immediately stands up in his normal mode. Destroyed by all the Rangers in the penultimate episode... and reveals that he'd used a hologram to fake his death and had actually jumped out of the way of the combined-weapon BFG blast. We're pretty sure his defeat in the season finale was his true death (his Power Rangers S.P.D. appearance was by way of Time Travel.) but there's such a thing as Reunion Shows and the dude has died about five times... so who knows.
It also appears in Power Rangers RPM where after Venjix's new body is destroyed, (multiple times) he always returns to his tube within his fortress. Even after the final battle is over and the rangers turn in their morphers, a red light reminiscent of Venjix's light in his tube is seen beeping on Scott's Morpher, while Venjix's theme plays in the background, hinting that he would return. It's eventually revealed that he was still alive in Power Rangers Beast Morphers...having been reincarnated into series Big BadEvox.
In the Season 1 finale of The Pretender, Dr. Raines should not have survived when Sydney shot his oxygen tank and it exploded, yet he's still alive albeit badly burned in Season 2.
It stands to reason that this would occur in Sherlock, as this IS just a modern-day incarnation of the original stories and the Season 2 finale is titled "The Reichenbach Fall". One difference between this episode and the original "The Final Problem" is that while we know Sherlock's alive because we see him standing under a tree after his funeral, watching John watching his headstone, Doyle intended to keep Holmes dead.
Apophis exhibits this particular trope on several occasions, surviving his ship being blown up, a catastrophic explosion (both by ringing away at the last possible second), and a star going supernova. He was finally killed when his mothership was about to explode, burning up in the atmosphere of a planet, infected by replicators, which were swarming over his personal shield. And he STILL managed to get guest spots in later episodes where he appeared in flashbacks and an alternate time line. For a villain who was really kind of bland and uninteresting, you sure couldn't keep the guy down.
Dr. Daniel Jackson is able to survive the un-survivable. He repeatedly actually dies, almost dies (ergo, this trope), or is believed to be dead a total of seventeen times, including the movie. Such incidents include getting shot by a staff-weapon or other energy weapon (Stargate the movie, "The Nox", "With the Serpent's Grasp"), radiation poisoning ("Meridian"), not-dead deaths ("Fire and Water", "Threads'), temporary deaths such as a heart attack ("Avalon") and alternate universe deaths ("Moebius", "There But For the Grace of God", "2010"). His robotic clone also died first in "Double Jeopardy", before we knew that they were the robot SG-1. This is lampshaded by two archaeologists finding some ancient ruins:
"Dr. Jackson's going to die when he sees this!" "What, again?"
At the end of the Star Trek episode "Amok Time", Spock resigns in disgrace after having killed Jim Kirk. Tri-ox compound, my ass.
In Supernatural, the Winchesters are surprised to see Meg again after she fell out of a window to her apparent death.
Derek from Teen Wolf in "Lunatic". In the previous episode, he gets clawed in the back by the Alpha, while Scott and Stiles make a run for it. We see him hit the ground, but he turns out to be fine.
Buredoran of the Comet from Tensou Sentai Goseiger fits this to a T after he's seemingly destroyed he comes back as Buredoran of the Chupacabra then after that he comes back in the Vs movie as Buredoran of the Bloodbath and then is finally brought back as Buredo-RUN before he assumes his true form.
and scares the burglar, sending the latter off a balcony to his death.