History AndIMustScream / LiveActionTV

** ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': There are a few examples. A monster called Pineoctopus (who could disguise himself as a [[MonsterClown clown]]) had the ability to turn people into cardboard cutouts, the Rangers were also turned into pachinko balls on one occasion and bricks on another.

* ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'': The Phoenix Phantom has the power to resurrect himself, immune to whatever killed him last, and even a Rider with eight forms is gonna run out of Finishing Moves eventually. Worse, he comes back faster each time, and nears total invincibility by the time of their final encounter. What does Wizard do? Upon gaining a ninth form with the powers of the others put together, he Rider Kicks Phoenix [[HurlItIntoTheSun right into the sun,]] where even if he does become immune to the intense heat and pressure, he'll never be able to break its gravity and return to Earth.

** Matthias Pavayne in "[[Recap/AngelS05E04HellBound Hell Bound]]" ended up like this. After he'd died, his ghost survived by sending other people to Hell in his place. After using [[AppliedPhlebotinum phlebotinum]] to bring him back to mortal life to neutralize his ghostly powers, and realizing they can't kill him without starting the whole thing over again, the heroes instead imprisoned him in a life-extending "cell": a locked closet in an empty basement hallway. He will be kept alive, unable to move, unable to blink, and unable to scream Forever.

* '''Series/{{CSINY}}'': The very first episode (excluding the PoorlyDisguisedPilot) involved the phenomenon of "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-In_syndrome Locked-In Syndrome]]." "Locked In Syndrome" was also used in episodes of both ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' and ''Series/{{House}}'' (See Real Life Examples.)

* ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'': The Phoenix Phantom has the power to resurrect himself, immune to whatever killed him last, and even a Rider with eight forms is gonna run out of Finishing Moves eventually. Worse, he comes back faster each time, and nears total invincibility by the time of their final encounter. What's Wizard to do? Upon gaining a ninth form with the powers of the others put together, he Rider Kicks Phoenix [[HurlItIntoTheSun right into the sun,]] where even if he does become immune to the intense heat and pressure, he'll never be able to break its gravity and return to Earth.

* ''Series/{{KamenRiderWizard}}'' The Phoenix Phantom has the power to resurrect himself, immune to whatever killed him last, and even a Rider with eight forms is gonna run out of Finishing Moves eventually. Worse, he comes back faster each time, and nears total invincibility by the time of their final encounter. What's Wizard to do? Upon gaining a ninth form with the powers of the others put together, he Rider Kicks Phoenix [[HurlItIntoTheSun right into the sun,]] where even if he does become immune to the intense heat and pressure, he'll never be able to break its gravity and return to Earth.

* ''Series/KaitouSentaiLupinrangerVersusKeisatsuSentaiPatranger'': Unlike most SuperSentai {{BigBads}}, [[TheDon Dogranio Yaboon]] was not destroyed in the final battle [[spoiler:instead, he was imprisoned inside an underground maximum security cell for the rest of his (presumably very long) lifespan. He spends his last scene screaming he'd rather die that live powerless in his decrepit body.]]

* ''Series/{{Grimm}}'': As demonstrated by Eve ([[spoiler:AKA Juliette]]), extremely-powerful [[WitchSpecies Hexenbiests]] are capable of covering up various orifices in an unfortunate victim with skin flaps. Eve does this to torture a member of the Black Claw for information. After a short while of being completely cut off from the outside world by having his mouth, eyes, and ears covered up, the guy is ready to spill everything. Strangely, having skin flaps on his ears somehow makes him lose all hearing ability, even though certain animal species (e.g. snakes) are able to hear just fine with them. Hexenbiests are also able to remove the extra skin with seemingly no harmful effects.

* ''Series/Foundation2021'': For her part in the attempted rebellion, Brother Day sentences [[spoiler: Azura]] to a sentence of being artificially kept alive and conscious while restrained in a sensory deprivation pod.

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* ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie'':
** "Dive Bombed": The scuba divers who avoided getting decompression sickness when they came up top... then boarded a non-pressurized Cessna for a joyride. The lowered air pressure induced the DCS they were trying to avoid getting, resulting in all three of them, and they were forced to watch in helpless paralysis as the plane flew straight at a mountain.
** "Chippin' Dale": The construction worker who gets shredded alive by his wood chipper after using his foot to dislodge a jam. What makes it worse is that this type of death is ''distressingly common'' in {{real life}}.[[note]]At least 31 people died in woodchipper accidents from 1992 to 2002. Makes you want to ensure that every woodchipper comes with a DVD of ''Film/{{Fargo}}''.[[/note]]
*** Plunges straight into full-on {{Nightmare Fuel}} when in a talking head interview with a doctor, he reveals that since the crushing and shredding of the wood chipper wouldn't have severed the victim's nervous system, the victim felt every inch of pain at least up to his neck.
** "Drunk Die-er": The drunk driver who was still alive and had to not only watch his organs being harvested but ''feel'' every second of it.
** "De-Coffinated": The Haitian man who was paralyzed by his brother through a witch doctor's toxic dust and buried alive.
** "Constriction Accident": The construction worker who was buried up to his neck thanks to a truck driver who went to work with a hangover, but died slowly and breathlessly because the pressure on his chest prevented his lungs from expanding.
** "Suffer-Cated": A cyclist trying to get an edge over his competition uses an altitude tent to increase his red blood cell count, giving him more oxygen to burn while cycling. His dog (which was actually his girlfriend's, but she left the dog behind when she dumped her cyclist boyfriend), [[KickTheDog who's been deprived of food and water at the expense of the cyclist's training]], accidentally turns off the oxygen while getting his water bottle. The cyclist wakes up, panics from the lack of air, and falls door-down in his tent and suffocates to death.
** "Smoke Stalked": A [[{{Yandere}} crazy ex-girlfriend]] who wouldn't accept the fact that her ex-boyfriend was married to another woman ends up stalking him to the point that the couple has to go away on vacation just to get away from her. The girlfriend decides to break in the house by climbing through the chimney, Santa Claus-style. Unfortunately, she gets stuck for days, wasting away from starvation, suffocation, and dehydration. When the couple returns, they freak out when they find the ex-girlfriend's corpse blocking the flue in the fireplace.
** "Pretty Fly For A Dead Guy": A nerdy man bent on killing bugs creates wall-sized flypaper treated with an extremely sticky glue as a means to capture any and all creepy crawlies. Once he's finished, a mosquito buzzes around him and the man goes after it with a flyswatter. The man slips and gets stuck to the wall, completely immobilized, soiled from losing control of his bladder and bowels, and died days later from dehydration and the bugs turning his body into a buffet.
** "Texas Fold 'Em": A poker player who regularly cheats gets in trouble when he uses his cheating tricks on a group of workers with ties to the mob. The player makes a run for it and ends up in an old car. What he doesn't know is the car is scheduled for destruction. A claw drops and the door pins down on his leg, rendering him immobile. A forklift takes him to a car compactor (no one can hear his screams because of the machinery) and he is slowly crushed to death while fully conscious and had to watch himself get crushed and slowly asphyxiate.
** "Botoxicated": An ex-beauty queen hires an unlicensed doctor to give her a Botox injection. Not being a real doctor, he accidentally gives her a bad injection. Feeling the effects set in, instead of calling 911 for a real doctor, she decides to take a dip in her hot tub to calm herself down. The bad Botox paralyzes her, and she slides under the surface, drowning in about three feet of water.
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** The Attic is a LotusEaterMachine where people that the Rossum Corporation wants to dispose of are sent to. It's actually a [[WetwareCPU giant neural supercomputer]] with the people trapped inside it experiencing never-ending nightmares. For example, one guy has been forced to ''eat his own legs'' over and over again for years.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E10TheBattleOfRanskoorAvKolos "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos"]]: This is the villain's final punishment. [[spoiler:Tim Shaw is locked inside a stasis chamber for all eternity, with Graham and Ryan making sure that "Grace" is the last word he hears. The Ux confirm that the shrine will be permanently sealed so no one will be able to free him.]]

** Matthias Pavayne in "[[Recap/AngelS05E04HellBound Hell Bound]]" ended up like this. After he'd died, his ghost survived by sending other people to Hell in his place. After using [[AppliedPhlebotinum phlebotinum]] to bring him back to mortal life, and realizing they can't kill him without starting the whole thing over again, the heroes instead imprisoned him in a life-extending "cell": a locked closet in an empty basement hallway. He will be kept alive, unable to move, unable to blink, and unable to scream Forever.

* ''Series/DarkMatter'': When the Android is hacked, she's fully aware of her unwilling acts but unable to stop them. Later Five and Sarah send a signal through the neural link to the hacker which leaves his mind stuck in a wholly empty and featureless space. He screams at finding himself in it.

* In the ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictims'' episode "[[Recap/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS7E7Name Name]]", the team encounters a woman named Anna who has so much brain damage from long-term drug abuse that she struggles to communicate and can't focus on anything for an extended period of time. It's made even worse when it's revealed later in the episode that the reason she became an addict was that when she was a teen, her stepfather used to force her to take drugs so that she couldn't fight back when he would sexually abuse her.

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.

*** Misty, a FriendToAllLivingThings, has to relive a painful day in which she tried to FreeTheFrogs by reviving one with her power of resurrection — only to have to kill it herself, all while her classmates laugh at and mock her. [[spoiler:Unlike the other witches, she doesn't get out.]]

*** Madison, a severe [[ItsAllAboutMe drama queen]] and actress, gets trapped on the set of a bad production of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' forever — and she doesn't even get to play the lead!

*** Marie Laveau herself is stuck in the same portion of Hell as Delphine and initially thinks that getting to punish her rival for eternity is a reward. However, when she's forced to also kill Delphine's daughters, who were innocent children, she realizes that she's lost her moral high ground — the one thing that separated her from [=LaLaurie's=] own murderous behavior — and understands that she too is being punished.

*** Upon discovering that his wife was planning to run off with Rudolf Valentino and Natascha Rambova, James March had the two vampires kidnapped and transported to a [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere hidden wing of the hotel]]. Once they're in place and unconscious, March has all the doors and windows bricked up, and the only exit from the wing is sealed behind a steel bulkhead — reinforced with another brick wall for good measure. Given [[OurVampiresAreDifferent the nature of vampirism in this setting]], Valentino and Rambova can't actually die of starvation, but can only linger on, [[AgeWithoutYouth slowly aging into hideous monstrosities as their eternal youth breaks down]] without blood to sustain it. And they remain like this for almost a century before being accidentally released.

*** Later in the season, the Countess re-uses the sealed wing as a prison for [[spoiler:Ramona Royale and — on a spur-of-the-moment decision — Will Drake.]] Given that one of the prisoners is a vampire and one's a human, the latter dies ''very'' quickly, soon leaving the survivor in more or less the same predicament as Valentino and Rambova. [[spoiler:However, Ramona is eventually released from captivity before her stay becomes too torturous.]]
*** During Sally's backstory, she once got unbelievably high on heroin and [[BodyHorror sewed herself to her lovers/bandmates]] — both of whom were also high at the time. Unfortunately, the two promptly suffered fatal overdoses. With Miss Evers unwilling to send for help, Sally was left sewn to the decomposing bodies for several days, being tortured by the Addiction Demon, until she literally tore herself free. And according to March, this is just a taste of what will happen to Sally [[BadBoss if she ever makes the mistake of displeasing him]].

** For much of season 4, [[spoiler:Garibaldi]] was under the influence of [[BrainwashedAndCrazy mental programming]] courtesy of [[spoiler:Mr. Bester]] that causes repeated conflicts with his comrades, eventually drives him to resign, and ultimately causes him to betray [[spoiler:Sheridan]]. When [[spoiler:Bester]] gives him TheReveal, he off-handedly says, "I can feel you, you know, the real you. Beating at the inside of your skull... screaming to get out."

** [[spoiler: In another instance, a copy of a criminal's mind — after confessing — is left in a simulated version of the crime scene with "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" playing on the radio repeatedly. The police in control of the simulation have set it so that 1000 years a minute pass for the copy, and have stated they won't switch the simulation off until after Christmas.]]
** [[spoiler:Not quite as bad as the above, but the computer programmer who tormented the copy above has been caught breaking the law. In this future, people wear Google Glass-style contact lenses that can't be removed that allow recording of everyday life — and also allows people to be blocked as on social media in real life, so that you cannot see or talk to them, and see only a grey outline. The programmer was running an illegal business helping guys meet women by seeing (and recording) through their eyes and giving them instructions. His punishment for being a peeping Tom? He is blocked — by everyone.]]

** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E3TheWitch The Witch]]", Amy's body-swapping witchy mom has one of her spells turned back on her, and seemingly vanishes. At the end of the episode, it turns out she's been trapped in one of her old cheerleading trophies. She presumably died when they blew the school up at the end of season three, but fans speculate [[spoiler:that this somehow released Catherine to possess her daughter Amy again, explaining Amy's otherwise inexplicable FaceHeelTurn.]]

** In the season seven episode "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E3SameTimeSamePlace}} Same Time, Same Place]]", Willow is trapped and paralyzed in a cave with the demon Knarl, who paralyzes his victims and then proceeds to ''eat their skin''. '''One strip at a time.'''

* In a season one episode of ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'', [[spoiler:Dora Mae is murdered in Babylon, a town that has been cursed with immortality. If you die there, you have to stay '''forever''', meaning she has to spend eternity as a whore to a town full of similarly cursed miners.]]

* In season three of ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', the question of how to punish the season's BigBad when doing so would lead to a main character going to jail was solved when she stroked out and ended up with Locked-In Syndrome. Her son then twists the knife a little further: "I'm going to turn your head now so you can watch me walk away. It's the last time you'll ever see me."

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors "The Three Doctors"]], we find that the co-founder of Time Lord society, Omega, survived being sucked into a black hole and is now in an anti-matter universe that he can shape — only problem is that he's the only one there. By the time the Doctor finds him, he's understandably lost it.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood "The Family of Blood"]]: At the end, the Doctor gives one of these fates to every one of the titular Family. (Moral of the story: never, ever piss off the Doctor.) He throws the mother into the orbit of an event horizon of a black hole, to be trapped there forever. He wraps the father in unbreakable chains. He traps the sister in a mirror — every mirror in existence. And he suspends the son in time, covering his face with a sack and sticking him upright as a scarecrow to watch over the fields of England.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens "The Pandorica Opens"]], the Doctor is contained inside a super-prison built exactly to his specifications, unable to move at all and preserved for eternity. He's even screaming as it closes — this trope to a T.

** In the season 2 finale, Hiro Nakamura takes revenge upon Adam Monroe this way by [[BuriedAlive sealing him in a coffin, buried deep underground]]. Since Adam is immortal, he's likely trapped in there for eternity.[[spoiler:(Or at least until season 3.)]] In the graphic novels, it is shown that he is repeatedly dying, presumably of suffocation, only to be brought back to life by his regenerative powers again and again. BewareTheNiceOnes indeed...
** And in season three, Angela is temporarily [[spoiler:rendered unable to move except for her eyes by her husband]].

* In "Stiff", a season-ten episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'', a woman is found comatose because her husband has been injecting her with near-overdoses of insulin (with her consent) in their sex games to render her immobile but conscious. It turns out that [[spoiler:she's not comatose at all: her daughter has replaced the insulin with a drug that permanently puts her into a locked-in state. ''Permanently.'']]

* ''Series/{{Misfits}}'' - Season 2, episode 6. [[spoiler: Nathan; a man who can control dairy products 'kills' the immortal Nathan by basically strangling his brain with cheese, leaving Nathan in a permanent vegetative state]]
** Also in Season 3, episode 5 when [[spoiler: a coma patient uses her power to switch bodies with Kelly. To make matters worse, the patient's mother decides on turning off the life-support machine the next day]].

* A particularly ironic FateWorseThanDeath befalls an escaped Nazi war criminal in the PilotMovie for ''Series/NightGallery'' (this was the third of the three stories it told). He discovers that he has the power to wish himself into paintings (or at least, into ''one'' particular painting at a local art gallery, which features a lone figure in a serene fishing scene). Near the end of the story, when he's on the run from the authorities, he escapes to the museum and tries to wish himself back into the painting-- only to discover that it has been replaced with a scene of the crucifixion of a death-camp inmate. He then gets to spend the rest of eternity trapped in the painting, undergoing perpetual torture as the figure of the inmate.

* ''Series/NightVisions'', a short-lived "Twilight Zone"-type series hosted by Music/HenryRollins, had one particular half-episode called "Switch". In it, a woman seeing a psychiatrist to find her alternate personality and eliminate it found that [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie she WAS the alternate]], created by her child-like real self after her parents died when she was 5. The real twist? [[spoiler: She murdered them.]] The episode ended with this woman - trapped in her mind, unable to speak, and unable to move - encased in 8 big hollow bricks that spelled out "ETERNITY", with holes only for her forearms.

** The season 4 mid-season finale, "Heroes and Villains", [[spoiler:has Hook being mind-controlled by Rumplestiltskin...and, judging by the desperate way he clings to Emma's arm before Rumpel re-asserts control, he's fully aware the whole time.]]

*** The hosts to the Goa'uld are subjected to being stuck within their own bodies unable to communicate or control themselves, watching their bodies commit horrible atrocities- ''for millennia''.

* The pilot episode for the ''Series/SwampThing'' TV series showed the title hero fusing the still-living body of one of the bad guys into a tree, leaving him a half-man, half-tree hybrid, in very much the same fashion as the ''Doctor Who'' example above - although in this case the effect is even more disturbing, as the bad guy's face is left frozen in a way that very much brings Munch's ''The Scream'' to mind.

* In ''Series/TheTribe'', during season 4 the Technos don't kill some people, but give them a much worse fate and instead use them in human experiments by hooking them up to an endless, inescapable virtual reality simulation for their boss's twisted enjoyment.
* In the season 3 finale of ''Series/TrueBlood'', Eric and Bill trap vampire [[spoiler: Russell Edgington]] wrapped in silver and encased in concrete, because true death would be too merciful for him. He swears to spend the following hundred years to plan his revenge.

** In the second season finale, [[spoiler:H.G. Wells is captured after attempting to destroy the world and is taken away by government agents. Her fate is unspecified, but it is said that it will be even worse than "bronzing".]] The actual reveal in season three is debatable on whether it is worse as [[spoiler: it is her entire persona is downloaded into a coin whilst her body is given a new personality. It's not stated if her normal personality is aware of being in the coin.]]

** Somewhat subverted at first. Sam had doubts about the hunter life ever since he learned about the supernatural, and the only person he talked to about it when he was young was his imaginary friend who turns out to be a creature called a 'Zanna', a benevolent species tasked with keeping young children company until the child is no longer in need of an imaginary friend. After shutting the imaginary friend out in hopeful pursuit of the family business, he once again lost interest, which left him with the same situation and nobody to talk to, which started the lonely path to where adult Sam is in season 1 episode 1. For a long time, Sam still won't talk about it. The trope is finally completely averted when Sam begrudgingly accepts the life he was raised into for the good of all.

*** Averted in-show in the case of Anna; the only vessel we see her use was her body when she was human, which she had recreated for her use.

*** [[spoiler:Michael also falls in while possessing the Winchester brothers' half-brother, leaving them both imprisoned as well. They remain long after Sam and Lucifer have gone, leaving them with only each other for centuries. Though they appear to have made the best of the situation, having developed a rapport amidst their lonesome.]]

** Sam and Dean use this to beat the high demon Abaddon in "As Time Goes By". First, they shoot her in the head with a bullet engraved with a demon trap, permanently locking her in her meatsuit, which she can barely move. Then (offscreen) they cut her up into little pieces, and to boot it off, bury them in cement, encasing her for at least a few thousand years. As Dean put it, she'll wish they had killed her.
*** [[spoiler:Then they bring her up again and sew her back together, in their attempt to 'cure' a demon.]]

*** [[spoiler:The nightmare Dean has about going through with this plan makes for an especially terrifying viewing experience, especially for claustrophobes/aquaphobes]].
*** The Winchesters trick the Nephilim Jack into getting inside this box after [[spoiler:the loss of his soul]], though he easily breaks out.

** Even Adolf Hitler gets this treatment. Instead of committing suicide in 1945, the Führer allowed the [Ghostapo Thule High Command to transfer his soul into a pocket watch]. He stayed inside the watch for over seventy years as it made its way through several countries. By the time he's freed and resurrected he has, understandably, lost his mind.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** Somewhat subverted at first. Sam had doubts about the hunter life ever since he learned about the supernatural, and the only person he talked to about it when he was young was his imaginary friend who turns out to be a creature called a 'Zarla', a benevolent species tasked with keeping young children company until the child is no longer in need of an imaginary friend. After shutting the imaginary friend out in hopeful pursuit of the family business, he once again lost interest, which left him with the same situation and nobody to talk to, which started the lonely path to where adult Sam is in season 1 episode 1. For a long time, Sam still won't talk about it. The trope is finally completely averted when Sam begrudgingly accepts the life he was raised into for the good of all.

** "The Rapture", in a slight subversion, has the good guys bestow this kind of fate upon another good person. Jimmy, the vessel for angel Castiel, begs Castiel to [[TakeMeInstead possess him to save his daughter from having a similar fate]]. It's essentially the fate for every human possessed by an angel or demon. Even the "good guy" angels like Castiel, Anna and Gabriel have been pulling this stunt for countless millennia.

** In the fifth season finale, [[spoiler:Sam actually volunteers to trap Satan by allowing himself to be possessed by Satan and then jumping into an inescapable cage at the bottom of Hell. Because being locked up for all eternity with a very pissed-off fallen angel who has nothing to do but take out his frustration on Sam]] was the only way they could think of to prevent a global apocalypse. [[spoiler:Downplayed because his body gets set free by Castiel not long after, and his soul a year later by Death.]]

*** [[spoiler: Then they bring her up again and sew her back together, in their attempt to 'cure' a demon.]]

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors "The Three Doctors"]], we find that the co-founder of Time Lord society, Omega, survived being sucked into a black hole and is now in an anti-matter universe that he can shape-only problem is that he's the only one there. By the time the Doctor finds him, he's understandably lost it.

** The Soul Hunters' story goes to extremes in the TV-Movie ''Babylon 5: The River of Souls'', where they do it to [[spoiler:''an entire world'']]. RealityEnsues when the entrapped people become a SealedEvilInACan, because they weren't actually dying... [[spoiler:''[[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence they were evolving.]]'']]