2006 End-of-Season Cliche (Possible SPOILERS!!!) (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

(Admin note - thread title changed to reflect the possible spoiler content, some were spoiled for me, for instance (but I have to read most posts in this area), since I haven't seen all the episodes in question, and some are referring to previews for the respective show's season finales next week, and makes this thread's content a little premature, so read at your own risk!!!)

This year's official end-of-season cliche (in the final episode or one of the last two or three leading to the cliff-hanger) appears to be "kill or almost kill a regular or important recurring character - preferably a loved one"

So far we've had the following:

Lost - not one but two regulars killed by gunfire in the run-up to the season finale, and possibly more to come.

The Ghost Whisperer - co-star demoted to "ghost" in the two-part season ender.

CSI series regular shot and critically wounded in part 1 of season ender. Promo suggests that one of his co-stars is designated to make medical decisions for him and may have to make the call on pulling the plug.

Criminal Minds A cliche two-fer as a series regular is last seen reaching for her weapon while a bad guy levels a gun at her head. Then they fade to black just before we hear the sound of a single gunshot.

CSI: NY Ringing a variation on the theme, this show featured a former regular being killed and let the team solve her murder.

CSI: Miami Completing the CSI trifecta, NYPD: Blue (South) kicks off its 2 part season ender by shooting the wife of a series regular (or maybe fiancee, not sure yet if the shooting is before, during or after the ceremony.)

Numb3rs The promo shows the Judd Hirsch character, father to the FBI agent and the math whiz, shot and on the ground.

Crossing Jordan On the morning of her best friend's wedding, medical examiner Jordan Kavannaugh wakes up in bed with her sometime boyfriend - covered in his blood and holding the gun that killed him.

(Bones did the "hot chick wakes up after a black out covered in dead guy's blood" a couple of weeks ago, but since the dead guy was someone Dr. Brennan just met in that episode and I don't think she actually slept with him, that one wouldn't have counted even if it had been one of the last two or three episodes of the season.)

Anyone else have any to contribute to the list? That's pretty much all the scripted TV I watch (except for a couple of sitcoms, but you don't really expect dead-body cliffhangers on those, although now that I think about it, I'm not sure I'd put it past Two-and-a-half Men)

Regards,

Joe

 

[TravisR]

They killed off a series regular on The Shield at the end of their season this year.

And I have no advanced knowledge but it seems likely that someone will die on 24 which is also the show that I 'blame' for the current trend of killing off popular characters. Course maybe they'll trick me by not killing anyone else off this year.

EDIT: The tricky thing about the Lost deaths is that they were before the finale. I was expecting bad things to happen in the finale but not a few episodes before.

 

[Arild]

Prison Break Semi-regular shot and killed in the second-to-last episode.

 

[Rocky F]

Another for the not-quite-finale list, but the same night the two characters were killed on Lost, two were also killed on Alias, and another this week. Of course this is all leading up to the series finale, so there might be quite a body count over the next couple of weeks.

 

[Jay_B!]

Supernatural was great, but the possibility of Jeffrey Dean Morgan departing if he is made a regular on Grey's Anatomy left open the Charmed season-3ish ending of the three of them getting in a car crash by a demon... and it ends with Sam, Dean and John all bloody and unconscious... in case Jeffrey departs for GA, the perfect way to bury John off.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Sorry about the spoilers - what can I say, I just wasn't thinking. (Guess I assumed that by Sunday everybody would have caught up with their DVR recordings and caught the promos. CSI: Miami, for instance, has been telegraphing the shooting in its two-part season ender for weeks, even including an obvious clue in the promo from two weeks ago because they ended with a shot of the sniper drawing a bead on the wedding party.)

Travis and Arild: Thanks for reminding me about The Shield and Prison Break. The Shield technically wasn't a season finale, since the next block of 10 episodes is supposed to be part of season 5 (call it season 5 1/2), but I think it counts. It just happened so long ago that I forgot about it. I have no such excuse with Prison Break a show I record and watch every week.


Yeah, I know of a couple of series finales where they offed pretty much everybody. Won't mention the because of obvious spoiler issues for those who may discover them on DVD.

Regards,

Joe

 

[CherylJ]

On Veronica Mars, three major characters were killed off in the season finale. One of them was in the main credits as a series regular and the other two were major recurring characters.

Then again, given the fact that the entire second season of VM was about the mass murder of a bus full of kids, the body count in the finale wasn't all that high. A friend has taken to calling VM The Sopranos: the Early Years, considering how many people have been killed, many of them teenagers.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Of course, The Shield pulled the ultimate audience fake-out by killing a top-billed "regular", arguably the best known actor besides Chiklis, at the end of the pilot. That immediately let everyone know this was not your father's cop show.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

So, let's review:

CSI - Brass pulled through at the end of part 2, after being shot in part 1.

CSI: NY - They also managed to almost kill a regular in the season finale.

CSI: Miami - In the single most predictable event of the entire TV season Horatio Caine marries Eric Delco's sister and she's immediately killed. Who didn't see that one coming the minute Caine and the girl started making eyes at each other? She had "Mrs. James Bond" written all over her. No way those two were going to live happily ever after. In part 2 Horatio and Eric are out for revenge. How original. Oh, and in the 2nd part "One of their own" is "cut down". From the promo it looks like it could be some background uniform who may or may not have been featured in previous episodes, rather than one of the regulars.

Numb3rs - the apparent Dad-shooting turns out to be a dream the Charlie has in the teaser. One of the cheapest tricks in the writer's bag of cliches. The heroes almost get killed, but then they do that almost every week.

Oh, I forgot one: NCIS - A two-fer of sorts. Special Agent Gibbs nearly gets killed twice (once in the current story, once in a flash-back to an near-fatal combat wound during Desert Storm.) He recovers. In an amusing coincidence, an actor whose character was killed-off in the season finale of Prison Break turns up as Gibbs's former mentor in this one.

And in another thread we learned of the gratuitous death of a regular character in the in the Close to Home season finale.

And there's still one more (2 hour) episode of Lost, and it from the promo it looks like Desperate Housewives may whack another familiar face before going on summer vacation. At this point I'm starting to worry about Max Weinberg on Late Night.

Regards,

Joe

 

[TravisR]

I'd like to thank CSI for not falling into the cliche.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, actually the did, since the cliche, as defined in the first post, is "kill or almost kill" a series regular or recurring character.

Regards,

Joe

 

[KieranO'C]

Well thank God John Wells managed to avoid his helicopter 'fixation' for the end of The West Wing, then!

 

[MichaelBA]

They even killed off one supporting player on WILL & GRACE, although they should have killed them all....

 

[Rob P S]

Without a Trace - Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's character was kidnapped and almost killed after an office shootout, and ER also had a shootout but I don't know anything more about that. (Maybe John Wells used stock footage from his Third Watch hospital shootout.)

 

[Walter C]

Law & Order

One of the ADAs was killed off.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I get an occasional chuckle out of the reruns, but never really "followed" the show, so I didn't watch the finale. They killed somebody? Who? How? Did Karen drown in a vat of whiskey? Did Jack finally just spontaneously combust? I need details. (Use spoiler space if necessary.)

If they're going to start applying this idea to sitcoms, I might actually come to embrace it. Especially if it can be applied retroactively in the form of reunion TV movies. Wouldn't you like to get the entire casts of really bad sitcoms back together and then kill each of the characters off in suitable gruesome ways? I could do a 6 part mini-series just on the Brady Bunch.

Regards,

Joe

 

[MichaelBA]

I don't know the name of the character who was killed off, Joe, because I've not watched the show for years and I only saw the finale because somebody else had control of the remote that hour!

But the character was this little, short, Truman Capote type, if that helps. Apparently a nemesis for the Karen character, I think.