History FateWorseThanDeath / LiveActionTV

** Anubis and Oma Desala end up [[SisyphusVsRock locked in an eternal battle]], leaving them no ability to do anything except fight to survive. The same probably applies to Adria in her struggle with Ganos Lal (aka Morgan Le Fey), as the effect of Morgan taking Adria away looked the same as Oma doing the same to Anubis.

** Being made to be the pilot of a Shadow vessel. BodyHorror aside, the experience fundamentally changes you. You're no longer the same person you were before, despite having all the same memories. [[spoiler: This is revealed to be the explicit fate of Anna Sheridan.]]
*** It is implied that the actual integration with the Shadow vessel essentially kills the personality of the person integrated. Simply being prepared (by the use of implants that radically alter brain function) drives the person violently insane. [[spoiler: And being integrated is strongly implied to be in a state of incomprehensible agony, leading to the way Shadow vessels scream constantly.]]

* In ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth'', Blackadder is captured by the Germans, and is visited in his cell by a German commander who threatens him with a fate worse than death... unless he attempts to escape, in which case he'll suffer a fate ''worse'' than a fate worse than death. Although Blackadder immediately thinks of the term's origin, the fate worse than death turns out to be [[spoiler: teaching home economics at a girls school in Heidelberg. Designed to strike at the very soul of a man of honour, it doesn't have the expected effect on Blackadder. Very much a parody]].

** The episode ''[[Recap/BlackMirrorUSSCallister USS Callister]]'' has the VillainProtagonist Robert Daly [[spoiler: do it to the [=DNA=] copies of his colleagues. The [=DNA=] copies, much like the Cookies above, are perfectly sentient with all the memories and experiences intact. The offences range from basically sidelining him as NumberTwo, one of them for telling him off politely while seeking her out, as well as revoking admin rights [[DisproportionateRetribution for 15 minutes]]. It's actually hinted Daly has some sort of mental disorder, leading him to lash out in such sadistic way. Daly constructed Infinity Modded version for the sole purpose of playing around with the trapped copies in his simulated world of Space Fleet, basically a Star Trek expy. Judging by his set pieces, possibly hundreds of his colleagues are trapped in such a manner, desiring death. Later revealed that Daly is perfectly aware the clones are fully sentient, he is too sadistic to do anything about that. In his world, Daly has near-perfect control on his world, doing body modifications and set props as he wishes, causing BarbieDollAnatomy, literally invoking AndIMustScream, as well as causing BodyHorror on dissidents. He even brought a copy of his boss's kid just to break him to become his servant. The only reason he is defeated is because to maintain a so-called 'realistic' aspect to the show, he didn't make his powers (code) over the game completely absolute, [[WilfullyWeak only upto a certain range]]. And the new crewmember of the ship is a proficient hacker herself, and manages to manipulate Daly's weakness to coordinate a rescue mission in real life as well. Note that the original mission of the clones wasn't to defeat or kill Daly in any way, but to delete themselves in the update vortex before Daly finds them and tortures them like anything, as according to them, dying was much better than being Daly's guinea pigs.]] Speaking of which...
*** [[spoiler: Daly himself]], [[AmbiguousSituation possibly]]. Depending on who you ask, [[spoiler: his brain died the moment the Infinity Mod was completely deleted, or he died during the time spent in real life[[note]]It was a 10 day Christmas break, with Daly being a recluse[[/note]], or his mind is experiencing the game shutting down forever[[note]]possibly alluded in the ending[[/note]], or [[KarmaHoudini was eventually rescued]], possibly by [[TheFarmerAndTheViper his friends]].]]

** [[spoiler: Adam's]] eventual fate in the finale, courtesy of [[spoiler: Henry]] inducing [[AndIMustScream Locked-in Syndrome]] by injecting air into his brain stem and causing an embolism. The victim is left fully conscious, but unable to speak or move. Visiting him in the hospital, [[spoiler: Henry]] reassures him that they'll find a way out of the situation eventually; after all, [[{{Bookends}} they have eternity together.]]
* ''Series/Foundation2021'': For her part in the attempted rebellion, Brother Day has all of [[spoiler: Azura]]'s [[RevengeByProxy living relatives and friends executed]], while she herself will serve a sentence [[AndIMustScream being artificially kept alive and conscious in a sensory deprivation pod]].

** While her lover is executed, [[spoiler: Ofglen]] survives due to her fertility. [[spoiler: But you don't need a clitoris to get pregnant...]]

--->'''Wilson''': Heart attack, stroke, seizure, death, or worse.\\
'''House''': [[DeadpanSnarker Worse? Double death?]]\\
'''Wilson''': You live, but you damage the only thing you care about: Your rational mind.

* Happens big-time to BigBad Blaine on the series finale of ''Series/IZombie'': Not only [[spoiler: is he shoved into the bottom of a ''very'' deep well to spend the rest of his undead life, but his only companion is dim-witted ally Don E who was the one who pushed Blaine in after learning Blaine murdered the love of his life, and the only thing either has to look forward to is turning into regular zombies without any brains retain their sentience from.]]

** In ''Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight'', when a Rider is defeated they don't die, they're vented: they disintegrate and are transported to the Advent Void -- a limbo between dimensions from which there is no escape, there are no people, and -- once we see the Advent Void -- we see you're trapped in a small box that resembles a coffin, ''and you're still conscious''. The Void was actually intended to keep Riders from dying so that they could heal from injuries in a safe environment, but when Master Eubulon was defeated by Xaviax prior to the series' start, injured Riders had no way of getting out of the void after being vented. [[spoiler: Eubulon is revived late in the series and rescues everyone stuck in the void.]]

** Gold specifically says this when talking to Regina about [[spoiler: what she did to Belle]]. He says that [[spoiler: Regina keeping her alive so that she could be killed when it best suited Regina is a Fate Worse Than Death.]] He then [[spoiler: tries to get revenge by giving her one right back.]]

* In ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand'' and its sequels being sent to the mines is implied to be this for the slaves. In ''Vengeance'', Mira certainly believes this to be the case, to the point that when she's informed [[spoiler: Naevia]] died on the way to the mines, she considers it a blessing. From what we see of the mines, this is true.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George tells the people of Winfield that [[{{God}} his boss]] is not the easiest guy in the world to work for and that things can still hurt you after you're dead.

** The end of the infamous "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]". [[spoiler:You're the last person alive, with enough food to last you a lifetime and all the books you could ever want to read and no one will make fun of you for it. You pick up the first book... and your reading glasses fall off and break.]]
** The IronicHell episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]". You'll get everything you want-- until you (metaphorically) choke on it, and even then...
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]" has a Nazi war criminal be tortured by the angry spirit of a Holocaust victim by experiencing the pain his victims felt before they died. He's eventually driven insane before being found by authorities, and the spirit warns that it would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. Unlike most examples of this trope, there's no sympathy to be had for him due to the fact that everything he's experiencing is something he previously inflicted on another person, so his torment is [[LaserGuidedKarma no more than he deserves]].

* ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'': After their final showdown, Henry stops himself from trying to kill Adam ("trying" is the key word, since both possess ResurrectiveImmortality). When Adam tries to end Henry for good using the same pistol that first made Henry immortal, Henry injects him in the neck with a syringe. The pistol fails to kill Henry for good (proving that theory false), and the last we see Adam, he's paralyzed in a hospital bed (from an embolism that Henry gave him), hooked up to a life support system, with the triumphant Henry telling him that he'll continue trying to figure out how to end their "curse".

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'''s version of Hell. You're tortured, daily, in unimaginable ways, for decades on end, unless you agree to do the same to others. [[spoiler:Dean is able to hold out for thirty years before giving in]], although [[spoiler:his dad, John, held out for one hundred years, and never gave any sign of giving in]]. "Stuff legends are made of," indeed.
** To take it up a notch, the end of Season 5 had [[spoiler:Sam throw himself into hell's solitary confinement with vengeful archangels FallenAngel [[ArchangelLucifer Lucifer]] and [[ArchangelMichael Michael]] to lock them away so they didn't [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt raze the world]]]]. He thought they'd get to spend eternity torturing him creatively for this, but lucked out and [[spoiler:was freed]] after ''only a hundred and eighty years or so''.
*** And it's even suggested that it might have been closer to ''five millennia''.
** Even people who are already demons are afraid of this. In Season 5, Crowley tells Brady that Lucifer will probably kill him outright, but keep Crowley alive to be tortured forever. Later, Crowley spreads a rumor about Brady being in league with him, then announces, "Good news--you're gonna live forever."
** In later seasons, after Crowley [[spoiler: becomes the King of Hell, it's heavily implied that any demon crossing him meets a fate of unimaginable torment.]]

* ''Series/Chernobyl'': Acute radiation sickness, which will leave someone hospitalised for weeks before they likely die by nervous system and organ failure, is described as extremely painful. Legasov alludes to this by warning a helicopter pilot that if he gets too close to the exposed reactor core, tomorrow he will be begging to be shot.

** As "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E02SoulHunter Soul Hunter]]" demonstrates, the Minbari regard having their souls captured by a Soul Hunter to be this, since it prevents their souls from being reborn into the next generation. ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm03TheRiverOfSouls The River of Souls]]'' delves deeper into this, with an entire race the Soul Hunters captured slowly going mad from their containment.

** The Minbari regard having their souls captured by a Soul Hunter to be this, since it prevents their souls from being reborn into the next generation. ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm03TheRiverOfSouls The River of Souls]]'' delves deeper into this, with an entire race the Soul Hunters captured slowly going mad from their containment.

** The IronicHell episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]". You love gambling? Great. You'll ''always'' win.

** In "Hell Bound", the gang is plagued by a sadistic ghost named Pavayne who feeds other dead souls to hell in exchange for not going there himself; they stop him by making him corporeal again. Since they can't kill him, Angel has him [[TailorMadePrison locked in a box]] [[AndIMustScream in the basement]] of Wolfram & Hart.

** The Minbari regard having their souls captured by a Soul Hunter to be this, since it prevents their souls from being reborn into the next generation. ''The River of Souls'' delves deeper into this, with an entire race the Soul Hunters captured slowly going mad from their containment.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In "Breakdown", Blake realises the surgeon operating on Gan is stalling for time until a Federation flotilla arrives.

'''Blake:''' [[ScottyTime Do it in twenty.]]\\
'''Kayn:''' ''(unimpressed)'' Or you'll kill me. \\
'''Blake:''' Oh, no, no, no. In twenty-five minutes I'm returning you to your station. If you haven't completed your work— \\

'''Blake:''' ''[[[GoodIsNotNice calmly]]]'' -- I shall destroy your hands. Twenty minutes.

* ''Series/{{Lucifer 2016}}'':

* In the ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "Pick Me Up", the two rival serial killers Walker and Wheeler both leave the same victim alive, chained to a tree with barbed wire so she will die of prolongued exposure instead.

-->'''Crow:''' ''(despairing)'' To be dead, to be nothing... to watch ''[[Film/InvasionOfTheNeptuneMen Neptune Men]]'' no more...

** "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime" features an AmoralAttorney who gets tried in a nightmarish KangarooCourt. She is eventually sentenced to death, but her public defender talks the judge into giving her public service. [[spoiler: She is led into a room with the electric chair, which alarms her...until the defender steps forward and straps himself in. He reveals that he was once an attorney like her, until he ended up in the court. But now he's free thanks to her. After he is killed, the woman is suddenly wearing his outfit, now stuck working in the courts forever. Even better, she tells him early on "I'd rather be dead than you." He throws the line right back at her just before he's executed.]]
** "Loved to Death" has essentially a StalkerWithACrush pining away for a neighbor. A LovePotion gets her interest and he's happy at first, but she becomes increasingly obsessive and clingy. [[spoiler:However, he winds up drinking poison and dies. In the afterlife, he thinks he's going to get some peace, but then the girl shows up. She says she couldn't live without him, so she killed herself by jumping out a window, and happily announces they'll be together forever.]]
** "Abra Cadaver": As revenge for a prank gone wrong, a doctor induces a heart attack in a younger jerk of a brother and injects him with an experimental drug meant to keep his brain alive. Clinically dead and unable to move, the younger brother is put through the process of being a cadaver for a medical school. [[spoiler:Turns out to just be an elaborate prank in itself with no harm meant, as well as to show that the older brother's drug does work. However, the younger brother suffers a second heart attack and seemingly dies, but not before another injection. The younger brother's brain is still alive, as his autopsy begins. ''And he can feel everything!'']]

** In the original series, there was the ending of "The Alternative Factor", which left the matter and anti-matter Lazaruses trapped between universes, at each other's throats for eternity. It's compounded by FridgeLogic when you realize they really just had to imprison the insane Lazarus and destroy his ship to protect the two universes.
** An episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' begins with an encounter with a Q who had been condemned to be trapped in an asteroid for all eternity, and therefore sought asylum from Captain Janeway so that he could commit suicide. Court trial and Moral Dilemma ensue.
** After Lore is first exposed as a danger, he is beamed out into open space and left there. Lore is an android with an inexhaustible energy source who could easily have remained in the vacuum of space indefinitely, while fully conscious and aware, were he not picked up by a Pakled ship two years later.

** In ''Children of Earth'', Jack got [[spoiler:trapped in cement]] until he was rescued, and before that he underwent the prolonged and (judging from the screams) extremely painful process of [[spoiler:regrowing his body]] after being [[spoiler:blown up by a bomb implanted in his lower torso]]. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when a witness to this resurrection comments that he'd have been better off staying dead.
** And then there's the fate [[spoiler: his brother, Gray,]] cooked up for him in "Exit Wounds": [[spoiler: being buried alive under Cardiff for the best part of 2000 years.]] "Your gift of life becomes a curse" [[AndIMustScream indeed]].
** "Adrift", where [[spoiler:they introduce Flat Holm, a place for people who had been taken by the Rift and returned. Then you have Jonah, who had been trapped on a burning planet, saw the destruction of a solar system, and looked into a Dark Star, which drove him insane. Now he screams for twenty hours a day.]]
** ''[[Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay Miracle Day]]'' is based on WhoWantsToLiveForever. Nobody, no matter how badly injured, can die. This leads to a particularly disturbing scene wherein a suicide bomber's "remains" are being examined by a medical team. His body has been largely blown apart and what little is left is burned, but the guy is still alive and appears to be conscious. [[AndIMustScream Even when they sever the remaining tissue connecting his head to the rest of him]]. Meanwhile, a sympathetic character is ''burned alive.'' If you think that's the worst way a person could die, imagine that as a way to live.

** One episode had a Nazi war criminal be tortured by the angry spirit of a Holocaust victim by experiencing the pain his victims felt before they died. He was eventually driven insane before being found by authorities, and the spirit warned that it would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. Unlike most examples of this trope, there's no sympathy to be had for him due to the fact that everything he's experiencing is something he previously inflicted on another person, so his torment is [[LaserGuidedKarma no more than he deserves]].
** The end of the infamous "Time Enough at Last". [[spoiler:You're the last person alive, with enough food to last you a lifetime and all the books you could ever want to read and no one will make fun of you for it. You pick up the first book... and your reading glasses fall off and break.]]
** The IronicHell episodes. You love gambling? Great. You'll ''always'' win.

* On ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', vampires mummify when deprived of blood for an extended period of time, but until that happens they are in an extreme state of hunger and agony.

** In "The New Breed", a man who injected himself with nanomachines to stop his cancer discovers to his horror that they [[TransformationHorror involuntarily mutate the rest of his body]] to repair "imperfections" (e.g. a lack of ''gills''). He tries to stab himself to death, but the machines simply repair the damage and restart his heart.
** In "The Sentence", the scientist who designed the virtual prison that simulates years-long sentences in the span of mere minutes is charged with reckless endangerment after he fails to save an innocent man from dying since the scientist had failed to take into account the possibility of an innocent person being placed in the machine. During his trial, one of the previous test subjects acts as a witness and tearfully claims that he'd rather be dead than endure the simulation again. This testimony helps doom the scientist to twenty years in prison. [[spoiler:Made more significant when it's revealed that the whole "sentence" was a simulation. The scientist had saved the man after all but wound up trapped in the simulation himself. His guilt over what happened to the man warped the simulation into a nightmarish ordeal. In other words, he had come to view his own creation as a FateWorseThanDeath. He's naturally horrified in the end when the senator who was previously skeptical of the virtual prison decides it's a great idea after all and approves its use.]]

-->'''Radiguet''': I won't kill you. You will fear my name your whole life, while living among the humans!

** The episode ''[[Recap/BlackMirrorUSSCallister USS Callister]]'' has the VillainProtagonist Robert Daly [[spoiler: do it to the [=DNA=] copies of his colleagues. The [=DNA=] copies, much like the Cookies above, are perfectly sentient with all the memories and experiences intact. The offences range from basically sidelining him as NumberTwo, one of them for telling him off politely while seeking her out, as well as revoking admin rights [[DisproportionateRetribution for 15 minutes]]. It's actually hinted Daly has some sort of a [[AmbiguousDisorder mental disorder]], leading him to lash out in such sadistic way. Daly constructed Infinity Modded version for the sole purpose of playing around with the trapped copies in his simulated world of Space Fleet, basically a Star Trek expy. Judging by his set pieces, possibly hundreds of his colleagues are trapped in such a manner, desiring death. Later revealed that Daly is perfectly aware the clones are fully sentient, he is too sadistic to do anything about that. In his world, Daly has near-perfect control on his world, doing body modifications and set props as he wishes, causing BarbieDollAnatomy, literally invoking AndIMustScream, as well as causing BodyHorror on dissidents. He even brought a copy of his boss's kid just to break him to become his servant. The only reason he is defeated is because to maintain a so-called 'realistic' aspect to the show, he didn't make his powers (code) over the game completely absolute, [[WilfullyWeak only upto a certain range]]. And the new crewmember of the ship is a proficient hacker herself, and manages to manipulate Daly's weakness to coordinate a rescue mission in real life as well. Note that the original mission of the clones wasn't to defeat or kill Daly in any way, but to delete themselves in the update vortex before Daly finds them and tortures them like anything, as according to them, dying was much better than being Daly's guinea pigs.]] Speaking of which...

* ''Series/{{Forever}}'': After their final showdown, Henry stops himself from trying to kill Adam ("trying" is the key word, since both possess ResurrectiveImmortality). When Adam tries to end Henry for good using the same pistol that first made Henry immortal, Henry injects him in the neck with a syringe. The pistol fails to kill Henry for good (proving that theory false), and the last we see Adam, he's paralyzed in a hospital bed (from an embolism that Henry gave him), hooked up to a life support system, with the triumphant Henry telling him that he'll continue trying to figure out how to end their "curse".

** In the episode ''[[Recap/BlackMirrorWhiteBear White Christmas]]'' the technology to create "Cookies" is introduced. [[spoiler:A person can get a temporary recording device implanted that copies parts of their brain patterns and creates basically an AI copy of the original. In the episode the cookie is then forced to be a smart-home-housekeeper for the original, still living human. Unfortunately the AI doesn't think of itself as a copy, but rather the original, and refuses to work, which seems to be a common occurence. To whip it into obedience, a handler can fast forward the perceived time of the AI. In a matter of seconds, a few days to month pass for the AI, in a white void, without the ability to contact anyone or do anything. At the very end, a different Cookie-AI is virtualized in a small cabin with a christmas song playing very loud in the background. Because the handlers of this AI seem to not think of them as anything even remotely human, they set the perceived time to 1000 years a MINUTE and leave it running over christmas eve to punish it, leaving it trapped for probably over 2 million years of solitary confinement, without any way to end the suffering.]]

* In ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman'', Radiguet finally got his revenge by mentally damaging Tranza's mind. End result? Tranza stuck as a human, in a mental hospital, getting mental attacks from time to time, with Tranza shouting "No! Forgive me!" at the end of the episode.
-->'''Radiguet''': I won't kill you. You will fear my name your whole life, while living among the humans!

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'': Gold specifically says this when talking to Regina about [[spoiler: what she did to Belle]]. He says that [[spoiler: Regina keeping her alive so that she could be killed when it best suited Regina is a Fate Worse Than Death.]] He then [[spoiler: tries to get revenge by giving her one right back.]]

** The episode ''[[Recap/BlackMirrorPlaytest Playtest]]'' has a goofy American globetrotter [[TooDumbToLive volunteering to test out an experimental video game that plugs into his brain and creates a tailor-made horror experience by placing layers on top of reality]]. [[spoiler:The game malfunctions and kills him, but not before presenting him with his deepest and most personal nightmares, [[AdultFear like making him watch his mother succumb to Alzheimer's]].]]

* ''Series/CowboyBebop2021''. In the Season One finale, Julia talks of the terror she felt for years married to Vicious, waking up and wondering if today was the day he was going to kill her. At the end of the episode she has Vicious chained up in the basement. Julia loads a revolver, aims it at Vicious and fires...only the gun just clicks and Julia says she'll be back tomorrow to try again.