History Main / DeathCourse

* Shifu's temple from ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' has one of these.

* The Eliminator from ''Series/AmericanGladiators'' was a toned down version of this. The two contenders would have to traverse a variety of obstacles, typically including (but not limited to) spinning cylinders, a climbing net, a zip line and a set of reverse treadmills. The Gladiators themselves would be involved, either enforcing penalties or operating/using some of the obstacles.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' runs through one of these to save Darla's life, though it should be noted that this was set up for the explicit purpose of testing the mettle of applicants to a specific and quite powerful supernatural favor.
* ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'' loved this trope. Another episode had a Death Course in the form of [[spoiler:an agent-killing automated factory]].
* The episode "Legacy" of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' had a villain who would capture and put anyone he deemed useless to society (prostitutes, junkies, vagrants, etc.) in a meat plant he had inherited, which he filled with such pleasant things as vicious dogs, noxious gas spewing vents and a room filled entirely with broken glass. Though he told his captives that he would let them go if they found the exit within a certain amount of time this appeared to just [[ILied be a means of inspiring false hope]] and in the end he'd just vivisect them with lots of nasty looking tools.
* British game show ''Series/TheCrystalMaze'' (hosted by Richard "Riff-Raff" O'Brien of ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' fame) presented a much-toned down version as the central set piece of the program.
* In one episode of ''Series/TheGoodies'', Graeme makes a death course for the sole purpose of committing suicide - and ends up walking blindfolded through the whole thing unscathed in order to answer the telephone.
* The obstacles in ''Series/{{Knightmare}}'' - the only children's game show where you could (virtually) die by being impaled on spikes, sawn in half by giant blades, having your head knocked off by flying bits of masonry, falling into bottomlessness after stepping on the wrong tile of an Indiana Jones-style causeway, and so on and so forth.

* An episode of ''Series/TheLucyShow'', of all things, has one of these - Lucy's bank built it to protect its vault in order to entice [[Radio/TheJackBennyProgram Jack Benny]] to keep his money there. Naturally, she has to give Benny a "tour".
** For that matter, Jack Benny's never displayed (if you discount the Looney Toons cartoon version) vault.
* ''Series/MacGyver1985'' features several death courses, some linear, some (implicitly) not, typically they are associated with his arch-nemesis Murdoc. One particularly blatant episode, "Halloween Knights" (which has a rather "Man with the Golden Gun" feel) involved a reformed Murdoc enlisting Mac's help [[spoiler:to save Murdoc's sister]], and being forced to traverse a linear Death Course by Murdoc's former mentor appropriately called "Death Row".

* The title character of "The Girl Who Was Death", an episode of ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' played like a '60s spy movie, set up a death course for No.6 in a movie set/ghost town, with appropriate obstacles in the butcher's, baker's, and candlestick-maker's shops, like triggered machine guns, trap doors, deadly ''electrified'' spikes, land mines, and poison-laced exploding candles.
* ''Series/{{Raven}}'' gives us the "Way of the Warrior", a perilous obstacle course with many traps with one goal in mind; the elimination of warriors. Swinging axes, shields that moved in and out, swinging barrels and jaws that moved up and down, etc. stood between a warrior and victory. Anybody who was knocked off the path was automatically out of the game. Only four contestants were ever able to defeat it.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' has a couple of these. Firstly in the Season 2 episode 'Thor's Chariot', and then in the Season 7 episode 'Evolution, Part 1'.

* In ''Series/TheWalkingDead'', when we see Morgan again since the pilot episode, he has turned an entire town into this.

-->If you negotiate the minefields in the drive
-->And beat the dogs
-->And cheat the cold electronic eyes
-->And if you make it past the shotguns in the hall...

* Or rolling rocks and objects to dodge and jump over.

* [[WatchForRollingObjects Rolling boulders and barrels]]

* ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'': While the first film was reasonably constrained with Jigsaw Killer forcing his victims into a single DeathTrap each, the sequels [[SequelEscalation added more and more traps]] and made the {{Abandoned Warehouse}}s larger and larger until the labyrinth Death Course became the default.

* A DescendingCeiling or AdvancingWallOfDoom

* In ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein2009'', whenever BJ acquires a new Veil power, the the game will feature a brief segment immediately afterwards dedicated to learning and experimenting with its use. For Mire, which gives BJ the ability to slow down time, this takes the form of a series of corridors with projectiles flying down them at near-bullet velocities; the player must use Mire in order to avoid being hit.

* The [[IndyEscape giant rolling stone ball]], always an ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' {{homage}}.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', where [[ArcVillain Papyrus's]] "final and most dangerous challenge" is to set up a gauntlet of weapons on ropes that are supposed to "swing violently up and down" on command. However, in the end [[MinionWithAnFInEvil he can't bring himself to activate any of the traps]] -- not even [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers the dog]] -- out of fear of actually hurting the protagonist.