Do Not Go Gentle / Live-Action TV

Do Not Go Gentle moments in Live-Action TV series.

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• The Americans: Implicated in the disappearance and death of FBI agent Chris Amador, Gregory Thomas is being hunted by D.C. police. Gregory's capture would lead to the arrest of Philip and Elizabeth, so the Centre insists that he be exfiltrated to Moscow. Instead, he takes a handgun and opens fire on the first cops he sees, killing several before being shot and killed himself.
• Andor: The premise of the series is that everyone is the Empire's enemy by default; they're paranoid fascists, they'll eventually kill everyone, including themselves. But most people are content to just live something like a comfortable life while they are slowly ground underfoot. Luthen's primary method of inciting rebellion revolves around shocking people into realizing that they don't have a choice in the matter.
  Luthen: It don't matter what you tell me or tell yourself. You'll ultimately die fighting these bastards. Wouldn't you rather give it all at once, to something real?
• Angel: Done in the Grand Finale. Angel acknowledges that his plan to kill every member of the Circle of the Black Thorn is a Suicide Mission, since the Senior Partners will undoubtedly kill him and his friends in retaliation, and he's just fine with that. The Senior Partners may be eternal and forever, but Angel wants to show them once and for all that no matter how powerful they are, they'll never control everything.
• Babylon 5:
  • There's the speech G'Kar gets during his Dust-induced hallucinations, by a nameless Narn who is later revealed to be Kosh.
    Narn: If we are a dying people, then let us die with honour by helping the others like no one else can.
  • Londo notes how the humans, during the Earth-Minbari war, knew they were doomed because of their lesser technology, but where other races would fall into despair humanity fought back even more strongly after every defeat (as he narrated we are shown a few examples of this, including a man trying to stand back up and fight after being knifed to death). He was quite impressed and moved to tears even. After two years of constant fighting, of trying to hold back the advance, with the Minbari force on Earth's and humanity would muster what military it had to Hold the Line as civilians tried escaping. Ironically, humanity was saved when The Minbari surrendered, which baffled everyone (they had discovered that each race was carrying some of the other's DNA—their races had crossed 1,000 years ago, as is revealed in season 3).
    Londo Mollari: The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage... their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end... they ran out of time.
  • In season 2, Sheridan insists Kosh teach him how to fight the Shadows so he can one day take the fight to them. Kosh warns, "If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die." But Sheridan invokes the trope and stands firm, "Then I die, but I will not go down easily and I will not go down alone." Fast-forward to the final episode of season 3. He's on the Shadow's homeworld and, having run out of room for negotiation, proves he's ready to keep the promise he made to Kosh. He has his spaceship crash into their largest city and detonate bombs with a combined force of one gigaton of TNT. All that's left later is a crater. He does die eventually...and then gets better.
  • Sinclair gets a vision of a possible future Where he stays on Babylon 5 instead of going to Minbar and eventually becoming Valen. The Shadows have struck before the younger races were ready to counter them, and are storming Babylon 5. Garibaldi and other members of station security are preparing to hold them back long enough for the others (like Sinclair) to escape. Sinclair tries to stop Garibaldi, but he shouts "Jeff, it's okay, I finally understand. This is the moment I was born for. Now go. Go!"
• The re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica, in the finale the titular ship can't last longer in space, so rather than going to be scavenged for parts, Adama decides to bring her in a final ultimate full-on assault on the Cylon's frakking headquarter with the sole mission objective of saving a little girl. It worked.
• Breaking Bad: In the penultimate episode, Walt is on the run from the law after becoming the most wanted man in America. He's been disowned by his family, his advancing cancer has turned him into an emaciated shell, and all the money he's earned from his criminal activities is seemingly worthless now that he has no way to get it to his family, who refuse to accept it anyway, rendering the entire series All for Nothing. With nothing left to live for, he decides to turn himself in, only to see a televised interview from his former friends Elliot and Gretchen disparaging him and minimizing his contributions to the multibillion-dollar company they founded together. His ego insulted, Walt decides he can't go out like this and heads back to Albuquerque for one last dance. Cue a Grand Finale where he makes amends with his wife, ensures Hank and Gomez get proper burials, threatens Gretchen and Elliot into giving his son the money he's earned under the guise of a generous "trust fund", rescues Jesse from slavery, and slaughters all his remaining enemies in a final bloodbath before Dying Alone.
• Villainous example in Charité at War: World War II has ended just about five minutes ago, Berlin is fallen, and Nazi nurse Christel has just attacked a Soviet occupation soldier with a scalpel. The soldier takes her outside for execution, and Christel starts a brawl, putting up quite an impressive fight. She's still shot two minutes later, and honestly, no one weeps for her.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Expanded Universe reveals that this is what happened to the Sixth Doctor, who died while fighting the Valeyard by causing his younger self to die of poisoning and regenerate, thus preventing the creation of the Valeyard. All in all, a very odd example.
  • Jack Harkness dies this way in "The Parting of the Ways", as he goes down fighting the Daleks. The Bad Wolf entity brings him back to life and grants him immortality shortly afterwards, however.
  • "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End": In the first part's cliffhanger, when the Torchwood Hub comes under attack by a Dalek, Gwen decides she's going to go down shooting at it with an assault rifle and persuades Ianto to do the same. However, they're saved from death by a time-lock security measure installed by a dead colleague of theirs.
  • "The Waters of Mars": The Doctor ends up refusing to let the crew of a Martian base who are doomed to die go down without a fight, in this case against time itself. However, in this instance, that's the wrong decision...
  • "The Time of the Doctor": The Eleventh Doctor dies of old age and exhaustion after spending 900 years defending Trenzalore from all of his foes. He then uses his regeneration energy to wipe out the Daleks attacking Trenzalore, thus ending the battle.
  • The Twelfth Doctor goes down fighting the Cybermen in "The Doctor Falls". Notably, there are several instances in which he can regenerate, but he holds it back and nearly dies permanently from his wounds.
• ER:
  • The fourth episode was titled "Into That Good Night" and the key plot was that of a man who would die before the day was out if he did not receive a heart transplant. Throughout the day, the doctors did everything possible to keep him alive while frantically searching for a donor... all to no avail.
  • Later on, when Dr. Greene's terminal illness progressed he decided that instead of undergoing chemotherapy he'd spend the time he had left enjoying his life and his family. The disease progresses quicker but he has a higher quality of life for longer than he would have if he had kept undergoing chemo.
• D'Argo from Farscape. The last time you ever see him, he has been fatally wounded and is holding back a group of super-soldiers with two rapid-fire energy weapons while telling them exactly who their daddy is. Chiana put it best later when she revealed the news to his son, Jothee:
  Jothee: Did he suffer?
  Chiana: Are you kidding? They suffered.
  • 3 of the final episodes are called "We're So Screwed". They don't go gentle, they go awesomely.
• Game of Thrones: Discussed when Jon says he would gladly give his life for the Watch. Qhorin replies that he doesn't want Jon to be glad about it, he wants him to fight until his heart's done pumping.
• Grace and Frankie: This is defied by Babe. Babe is an old friend of the titular characters that had cancer and has since recovered, however, as the cancer has come back, she decides to perform euthanasia on herself after hosting the best party she ever hosted, with every friend she ever made. When Grace learns about this, she tries to tell Babe she needs to fight for her life, but Babe refuses this, saying one time on the treatment was enough, and she would rather go out happy than stay to grow tired and weak.
  Grace: You need to go out fighting!
  Babe: I don't want to go out fighting, I want to go out flying.
• The Brunnen-G of Lexx were doomed to die at the hands of His Divine Shadow. While the older generation of Brunnen-G welcomed their inevitable death due to being weary of their immortal existence, a few of the younger ones led by Kai refused to die lying down. Their brave but futile assault is shown in the very beginning of the series and is later re-enacted in the Musical Episode "Brigadoom".
  Master of Ceremonies: The half a dozen little craft went forth against the might power of the Divine Order. Not really believing that they would win, for the Prophecy had told them that they would not, but knowing that they would die well!
• In the prologue to the 2008 Poirot adaptation of Cat Among the Pigeons, during the Ramat revolution, Bob Rawlinson and Prince Ali Yusuf are being cornered in a shootout and wounded, and after locking themselves in the royal bedroom, the pair decide to go all-out in a blaze of glory. As soon as the rebels bust down the door, tragedy ensues.
• The Sing-Off invokes this trope via the "Swan Song" — each group has a song prepared to sing if they get eliminated, and they give it their all despite knowing that they won't be winning the prize.
• In the last episode of Stargate SG-1 the Asgard accept their demise as a species and rather than slowly fading out of existence they finally grant the Tauri the entirety of their knowledge and equip the human ships with the pinnacle of Asgard technology as their legacy. After that, they self-destruct what remains of their once-great people, timing the explosion to take out a few last Ori warships.
  Daniel Jackson: I mean, all they wanted to do was live a little longer. We're no different. Sequence DNA. Cure diseases. One fatal mistake, and they doom their entire race. I guess no matter what you do, at the end of the day... life is too short.
• The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise". The warp core is about to overload, the Enterprise is all but defeated, and the Klingons hail for their surrender. Picard's response? Keep firing.
  Picard: "Let us make sure that history never forgets the name... Enterprise."
• A lot of the third season of Supernatural is essentially Dean pulling one of these after a Deal with the Devil leaves him with a year to live.
  "What do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell?"
• Taken: Despite being ridiculously outmatched, the Keys family defiantly attempt to fight their abductions. Even when they are caught, they would rather go down swinging than be taken. In "Charlie and Lisa", Charlie summed up his attitude and, by extension, that of his father Jesse and grandfather Russell towards the abductions:
  "If you were eight, yeah, maybe this would scare you. But you know what, Mom? None of this scares me anymore. Now it just makes me mad. If they come for me again, I'm not going without a fight. And if that lands me in some hospital room, sitting, staring out some window, screaming, then that's what it does."
• In a parody of this Prime Minister Julia Gillard appeared on the Triple J TV show for a very tongue in cheek end of the world speech.
  Julia: Whether the final blow comes from flesh-eating zombies, demonic hell-beasts or from the total triumph of K-Pop, if you know one thing about me it is this - I will always fight for you to the very end.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): "The Obsolete Man": The titular man, Romney Wordsworth has been sentenced to death by the State for his "obsolecence" and inability to conform to the State's demands. The manner of his execution is his own choice, provided it occurs in the next day or so. Given this oppotunity, Wordsworth is able to turn the tables against his would-be oppressors. He chooses to die by having an assassin plant a bomb in his apartment to go off at midnight. He then asks that he is permitted to have the explosion occur while on live television with the country watching. Once it is set, he invites over the Chancellor of his trial and locks the man in with him, knowing the State would never show weakness in rushing to save one of their own. Though not as glamorous or leaving enemies in his wake as others on this page, he continues defiance to the State as the time ticks down reading his Bible out loud, note that the Bible is also a banned book, in a calm and measured tone. Meanwhile the Chancellor slowly begins to panic, getting more desperate until finally begs to be let out in the Name of God. Wordsworth unlocks the door seconds before the bomb goes off but remains inside, calmly accepting his death. His death and continued resistance shows all who are watching that one can continue to resist, to stand against the oppression of the State. They are truly more scared of their people than they let on.

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